Shinra Tensei
by multifandom-fanfic-writer
Summary: The world of shinobi is a harsh one, full of shades of grey. In the aftermath of Sasuke's death, Sakura changes. Konoha does not notice. Slowly but surely, Sakura's loyalty to Konoha wavers, and starts to reach its breaking point... (Canon AU/slow build/Sakura eventually joins Akatsuki)
1. Hearing

As a wise men (Toni Morrison) once said: "If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it!"  
And thus this story came to be!

Important: In my story Pein is the real leader of Akatsuki. Because face it, canon just sometimes goes too far. Tobi (Madara – let's ignore the fact that he's Obito) hides his power behind the "happy mask." He's just a member, though. And I messed with the timeline a bit: For example, Sakura has defeated Sasori but Hidan and Kakuzu haven't fought with Konoha yet. Other alterations will become clear over the course of the story.

Furthermore, this fic will focus on the relation between Sakura and Akatsuki, and how Sakura changes from the loyal Konoha-nin to the bitter but strong Akatsuki-member. There will be slight ItaSaku, but slow build. Slow build in general: it will be several chapters until Sakura even really meets the Akatuski: one does not become missing-nin overnight.

For those of you wondering, Shinra Tensei means "Heavenly Subjugation of the Omnipresent God". It's the 'push' jutsu of Pein. (The 'pull' jutsu from Pein is named Banshō Ten'in)

Disclaimer: Does it really need saying? Well okay… The Naruto characters don't belong to me. If they did, the Akatsuki would still be alive, Sasuke would be dead and Sakura would be badass.

Now, on with the story!

* * *

'You asked for me, Tsunade-shishou?' Sakura asked as she entered the Hokage's office. She closed the door behind her and breathed in the smell of paper mixed with sake. Tsunade never stopped drinking, and Sakura was sure that if it wasn't for her being a medic her liver would've long since given up.

Sakura had assisted Tsunade for years and knew how though and draining being Hokage was. Even Naruto, with his boundless energy, would feel the strain if – when – he would take the hat. She couldn't really blame her shishou for drinking. Much. As the pink-haired girl turned her back to the door, she saw that Kakashi, Naruto and Sai were already there. The Hokage's office had several seals that prevented the sensing of chakra signatures, so she was genuinely surprised and smiled. It must mean they had a mission. It had been far too long since her last real mission with Team 7.

' **Wow. This time they decided to actually take you with them.** ' Inner Sakura murmured sarcastically. Sakura mentally shushed her.

'Ah, Sakura, you're finally here.' Tsunade said. Sakura frowned slightly. That was a bit of an exaggeration. She just had to finish up with a patient and Tsunade should know that because she summoned her in the middle of a hospital shift.

Shaking of her frown, she paid attention again as Tsunade began to brief them.

'A missing-nin from Sand has been seen about a day south of Konoha. The Kazekage asked us to take care of him, and to honour our alliance with Sand, I want this to be done as soon as possible. The name of your target is Tayam Katsuga, formerly a jõunin of Sand, mid A-level. He deserted around 3 years ago and may have become stronger, so be on your guard. I want you to get rid of him quickly and efficiently. Find him. Kill him. Take his body, or at least his head, with you as proof for Sand. He has been threatening and killing civilians in Fire and I want it to stop.'

Tsunade paused and the attending shinobi all nodded.

Sakura suppressed a smile. That sounded serious – she hadn't had a serious battle in ages.

Tsunade grabbed a mission scroll from her desk and tossed it to Kakashi.

'This mission is A-rank, possibly S-rank. Kakashi, you're in charge. We have little information on him, since we haven't had time to contact Sand for further details. What we know is in the mission scroll. Leave in an hour, pack supplies for two days. His last known location is in the scroll. Sakura, you're the medic and the back-up.

Any questions?' When there was no answer, Tsunade nodded. 'Dismissed.'

Sakura smiled to her teammates. 'Meet you by the gate?'

'I didn't know you were appointed team captain.' Sakura frowned at Kakashi's emotionless tone. 'Sorry.' she mumbled, her enthusiasm dimmed.

'Well, you heard our captain, one hour, at the gate.' Kakashi told his team, eye on her, and Sakura shrugged. Seemed her former sensei was in a bad mood today. Whatever.

'Bye, Sakura-chan! See you soon!' Naruto called with all the subtlety he normally possessed, which was none. It was obvious he wanted her gone, while the rest of her team hadn't even moved. Still, she wasn't accomplishing anything by standing there, so she nodded and Naruto and exited the office. Was something the matter?

 **'Hell yeah, a mission!'** Sakura was distracted from her train of thought when Inner did a victory dance in her head. She smiled. They had both been restless and had feeling a little down the last few weeks but with this new mission their spirits were lifted.

She just had to pop by the hospital to assign someone else to her rounds, and pack for two days. An hour was more than enough time for that. But the actions of both Kakashi and Naruto gave her an uneasy feeling in her gut. And if there was one thing she had learned in all these years of being a kunoichi, it was to trust your instincts.

Seeing that Shizune wasn't at her desk currently and the corridor was empty, Sakura formed the hand signs to temporarily undo the sound-proof jutsu she herself had helped placing upon the Hokage's office. This was technically illegal, of course, but the ANBU only watched the outside of the office, not the desk where Shizune normally sat. Plus, both Sakura and Shizune made a habit to do this regularly to make sure their Hokage was working and not drinking or sleeping (and snoring loudly). So she leaned her back against the door, hands behind her back to reapply the jutsu if she was noticed. She could always pretend to wait on her teammates, which wasn't far from the truth.

Not that anyone usually questioned her. Or paid any attention to her whatsoever. You would think that her pink hair would draw attention, but her orange-colored loudmouthed teammate proclaiming to be the next Hokage running around Konoha, and his claim getting more believable every day, was the center of the rumour-mill. Pink hair of a dedicated medic-nin was quite tame in comparison.

She used to feel bad about doing things like this, but she had to resort to spying and listening in more and more these days if she wanted to know anything about what was happening in the village. Like a true shinobi, she sometimes thought with a trace of bitterness. Most shinobi felt more relaxed in their own village, with of course a few exceptions, so with a mix of spying, asking and digging Sakura felt she was pretty up to date on the ins and outs of her village.

At first, the reason for her being so out of the loop was because Ino was out of the village on a six month mission and she had no other friends who were gossip-queens like the blonde. She had TenTen and Hinata, of course, but the former wasn't really one for village gossip and she was rarely alone with the latter. Then it was because she didn't really see Ino after she came back, and no one else seemed to want to fill her in on things she was supposed to know. Sure, she knew all the details about what was happening in the hospital, which did include knowing who came back from what mission injured this time, but that was only a fraction of the things that happened in Konoha. Sakura couldn't help but feel guilty in the beginning, but when the months flew by and nobody even asked her how she knew certain things let alone suspected her to get the information from anything other than rumours or Tsunade-shishou herself, she stopped feeling guilty. She had to know what was going on in this village and if nobody cared enough to inform her, she would do it on her own.

Her status as student of the Hokage, of course, helped.

'…not sure about it.' She heard Sai say and his voice snapped her back to reality.

'This could be dangerous, Sai. We need a medic. Sakura's the only one available with field experience.' Kakashi explained.

'I seem to recall her doing nothing but crying and shouting for someone to rescue her.'

Sakura's temper flared up. She was so over that. How dare he! ' **Well, before Sasuke left it kinda was the only thing you did.'** Inner pointed out. Sakura sighed. 'Yeah, that's true, but that was years ago! Sai wasn't even on our team then!'

' **It's just Sai being Sai. Just ignore him, yeah? He doesn't mean it. I think. Now pay attention!'**

Since Sakura was only listening, she couldn't see the death glare Naruto gave Sai and Kakashi shifting into his peace-maker stance in order to avoid a fight. 'I understand where you're coming from… But she's our best option.' Kakashi said. Sakura didn't even register the soothing tone and a tear threatened to form in the corner of her eye. Not even defending her?

She willed the tear away. She told herself long ago she was done with crying.

'I don't want Sakura-chan to get hurt, baa-chan. It's just… I don't know if she can handle this…'

Naruto?! What had she done to deserve this? Did Naruto really thing she couldn't handle a simple mission like this? That idiot! She didn't need protection! How many times did she have to say that! Her skills were on par with Tsunade's, and her punch strength as well. She trained every minute of her free time. She wasn't weak! She didn't need them to baby her, she needed them to trust her.

She was **not** useless!

'Sai, Naruto, Kakashi, listen. I know she's not the perfect candidate but she's good enough – I trained her myself. I do hope you're not questioning my teaching skills. She's capable and knows to work with you - she may not have the same amount of field experience, but that's why she's the backup. Now stop complaining and get out of my office. NOW!'

Sakura quickly re-did the jutsu and left before anyone could see her.

She quickly walked to the hospital and forced herself not to think about the conversation, lest her mind started over-analysing it. Then she would be distracted while packing and preparing for the mission. She went to her office, assigned to her because of her status as senior medic, called for one of her colleagues to finish her rounds, and left.

Before she went home to pack, she went to her favourite training ground to think. Training Ground 14, just inside the walls. It was rarely ever used because it was small and extremely wooded and thus not suited for team fights or sparring. Sakura searched for chakra signatures and when she found none, she jumped into the nearest tree and let her legs dangle in the air. She had 45 minutes left before they would leave for the mission and she didn't need more than 15 minutes to pack.

She leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes. The conversation on which she had eavesdropped flew through her head. It hurt, what her so-called teammates had said.

Memories of the past few years flew by. Team 7 kept leaving on missions, missions and more missions without her. She was "really needed at the hospital" and "this wasn't a tough mission anyway." She didn't really mind, at first. Sakura loved the hospital and she loved helping people. The hospital was her playground. She was always needed there. Looking back, she realized she had not felt needed or wanted by her team, and it was true that the hospital was in need of skilled medic like her. But still, maybe she could have been more assertive. She had assumed that after a few months, when there were more medics at the hospital, she could join her team more often again.

But months flew by and the situation didn't change. Sakura's attitude, however, did.

All those excuses sounded more hollow each time they were used. In the beginning, she waved them off, but after she missed a call for a mission once because of an emergency at the hospital and they didn't even comment on it, she gave up. It became more and more clear they didn't need her. Naruto didn't drop by at her place anymore, Sai stopped asking about her day at the hospital and calling her names, Kakashi only gave her an eye-crinkle instead of his customary wave and greeting when she bumped into him around town. Yamato went on a lot of missions with the former Team 7 now, and she had never spoken more than a greeting to the man.

They were never there for her and only sought her out when it was convenient for them. Her work as a medic was ignored and written off. As soon as they were injured, they immediately came to her like she was their mom. At he apartment, even, because they 'did not like the smell of the hospital.' Well, everyone but Kakashi. She had to force him to let him heal her when he was injured, which wasn't often, thankfully. And this reputation of the 'mom-friend' extended not only her former team, but also the others of the Konoha 11, as she heard people call them sometimes.

Even though she did feel like their mom, she didn't like it. At all. All the regular shinobi of her age who were even the slightest bit likeable saw her as a mother, a goddamn nurse, not the woman she was. Which meant that when she found the time and motivation to date, civilians were the only ones who had the slightest interest in her. And every shinobi knew they were never suitable for a healthy relationship. You know what they say: it takes one to know one.

Civilians didn't fully understand her life as a kunoichi. As a result, she had given up on love. She didn't need a relationship to live her life or make her whole. Her crush on Sasuke had long since withered and died. Just like the man himself.

Sasuke was dead. Somehow, it still ached when she thought those words.

At sixteen, a year after Naruto had returned from his training trip with Jiraya, Team 7 decided to try and bring back Sasuke once again. They had received word that Sasuke had killed Orochimaru and it re-fuelled their desire to bring him back to Konoha. Naruto was convinced that his self-proclaimed best friend would now return to Konoha.

Sakura never had the faith in Sasuke Naruto had.

On their way to the border of Sound they encountered Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame. Sakura didn't even see Kisame – she only heard about him later. They'd sensed two chakra signatures and when they saw Itachi, Kakashi ordered them to split up to prevent them from facing off a duo that worked very well together. Sai and Naruto lured Kisame away while she and Kakashi stood their ground. As soon as their two teammates were gone, they faced off with Itachi.

Strangely enough, the elder Uchiha didn't seem to want to fight them, and Kakashi had ordered them all to try and avoid a confrontation. They needed to be at full strength to return Sasuke.

(Sakura never thought too long about what would've happened when they would have fought them. They weren't Akatsuki for nothing. Her hands could not stop trembling that day.)

Sakura kept her eyes on Itachi's hands the whole time (Inner couldn't resist remarking that Itachi was even prettier than Sasuke, in her opinion) while Kakashi and Itachi had a look-at-me-I-have-a-sharingan stare off. Or maybe they had a genjutsu battle. To outsiders, they looked the same. Sakura herself was tight with adrenaline and almost overcome by fear. Still, she was ready to give it all for her village.

She waited for Kakashi's signal to attack, but it never came.

Ten minutes later, Itachi simply dissolved into crows and disappeared. Kakashi, confused with what had just happened and certain something was up, just headed towards were they felt Naruto's chakra spike and discovered them mid-fight with Kisame. Naruto looked worse for the wear and Kakashi later explained that that was Kisame's sword could drain chakra. Even on Naruto's seemingly bottomless reserves, and extended fight like that took its toll.

Sai couldn't stop Naruto from engaging Kisame but it seemed like Kisame was just toying with them. When she and Kakashi showed up, Itachi had also appeared behind his partner, given him a look and the both of them took off again. Kakashi just sighed.

It wasn't until later that they understood why the duo had been stalling them.

Sasuke, vulnerable because he had just killed Orochimaru, had been ambushed by Deidara and his yet unnamed partner who had replaced Sasori. The partner had taken on three of Orochimaru's human experiments Sasuke had taken with him and Deidara had fought Sasuke.

And won.

Team 7 had eventually stumbled upon the battlefield. It was a scene that would appear in their nightmares more than once after that dreadful day.

When thinking of Sasuke, Sakura had imagined many things. She thought of Sasuke turning up at the gate one day, with Oorochimarus head, full of remorse and wisdom. She thought of stumbling upon him by herself in a pub in a distant town, first punching, then screaming and then talking throughout the night. At dawn, she would hold out her hand, and he would take it and together they would walk back to Konoha. But most of all she imagined Team 7, chasing Sasuke, coming closer and closer until Naruto managed to finally pin Sasuke down and bring him home for good this time, her and Kakashi trailing behind with a smile and an eye-crinkle.

But never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined this.

The whole clearing looked like it had been blown up. There were craters everywhere. Snake corpses littered the battlefield, most of them without a head. The whole area smelt like it had been on fire.

And in the middle of the biggest crater, surrounded by Manda, the biggest snake Sakura had ever seen, lay Sasuke's body. It was as if Deidara had wanted them to find his body. Come to think of it, that was probably exactly what he wanted.

His left arm and leg were gone and there was a hole in his midsection dripping with blood but it was still unmistakeably Sasuke. He was covered in scratches, gashes, small holes made by some kind of explosion, blood and dirt and his face…

His eyes were gone.

Looking back at it, Sakura knew that shouldn't have come as a surprise. No way they would leave a powerful weapon like the sharingan just lying around.

(It wasn't until much, much later that Sakura learned Deidara had gleefully taken out and blown up both of Sasuke's eyes, much to Pein's displeasure. He had always hated the Sharingan.)

Kakashi had stopped moving. Naruto had broken down next to the body of his former teammate. Sakura herself hadn't been able to look away. Hadn't been able to do anything but stare. Their seeming undefeatable teammate had been defeated.

(Sai was the only one with a clear head and scoured the area. Sasuke's three teammates had been killed not that far away from where their leader had taken his last breath. Only ashes remained.)

After crying for nearly half an hour, Naruto had fainted. The chakra exhaustion from his fight with Kisame combined with the emotional stress had taken his toll.

Kakashi, who had been frozen until then, came to life like he was a machine. With short, lifeless movements he sealed the body in a scroll, slung Naruto over his back and returned home, Sakura and Sai on his heels.

Sakura said nothing, but the tears in her eyes spoke for her.

(She was so tired of crying.)

Naruto hadn't woken up until Tsunade gave him a shot of chakra in the hospital. He wanted to go after Deidara for revenge immediately but Tsunade forbade it. It was, of course, too dangerous. The remainder of that day was spend carving Sasuke's name into the Memorial Stone (even though he was technically a missing-nin, Naruto insisted and Tsunade couldn't find it in herself to stop him) and all three of them staring at the kanji of his name.

When the sun had almost gone down, it was, surprisingly, Hinata who came shook them from their stupor. Had Sakura been able to feel anything, she would've been surprised at how the Hyuuga girl had coaxed Naruto away from them. It seemed like she had finally found the courage to approach him.

She couldn't have timed it better. In the following weeks Naruto was almost never seen outside her presence.

After Naruto had left, Kakashi gave her an eye-crinkle which she didn't believe for a second and told her to go home. She didn't have the energy to resist.

Sakura knows this was the day it all went wrong. The day from which everything started to fall apart.

The following weeks Sakura spend in a daze. With Kakashi either training himself to death or living at the Memorial Stone (just one more name to mourn for) and Naruto being cared for by Hinata, Sakura's world was reduced to her apartment and the hospital.

Of course, Tsunade had forbade her from doing any hospital work for at least two weeks. To be honest, it was the worst decision the woman could've made. no matter her good intentions. Because Hinata was with Naruto and Ino and TenTen had left a week ago for a month-long mission to Suna, Sakura had nobody. As an only child with deceased parents, an empty apartment was the only thing that greeted her.

Her hands itched and her mind was restless. Flashbacks to her past combined with nightmares from the more recent Sasuke kept her awake at night.

She was all alone. Just her and her demons.

That was when Inner had started speaking to Sakura again. Sakura was very surprised when she woke up in the middle of the night in tears and the voice in her head started to soothe her.

She'd missed Inner. Her other half hadn't spoken to her after Sasuke left and stayed silent throughout the training with Tsunade.

Sakura thought Inner had gone away, that they had merged somehow, but she was wrong. Thankfully. Without Inner she would have never made it through Sasuke's death with her sanity intact.

Inner helped her through the first week, talking to her and comforting her whenever she could, which was to say almost all the time. Hinata and Naruto dropped by twice but none of them could think of anything to say.

There weren't many happy memories of Sasuke to share, anyway.

At one point Inner suggested punching and training the feeling of helplessness out of her and Sakura did. The next week was spend between training and the week after that between training and hospital duty. She was starting to act like Kakashi, she thought with a wry smile.

Once, she had even approached her (old?) sensei and challenged him to a spar. But Kakashi just looked at her with hunted eyes and told her 'the stars aren't right for a spar today'.

She did not ask again.

When her friends returned from their mission after three weeks, it got better. For over a week Ino and/or TenTen came by daily, even if it was just to eat dinner or sit with her. If they hadn't been there Sakura was sure she would've closed off completely and never opened up again, with only Inner as company.

But she didn't. And life went on.

Whatever happens, life goes on. This was a lesson Sakura would never forget.

By the time Sakura could breathe normally, Naruto was starting to go on missions and had a relationship with Hinata, and Kakashi showed up two hours late for a meeting again, a year had passed.

Naruto had finally worked through his pain together with Hinata. Kakashi had dealt with it in his own way, never forgetting but always moving on.

(He was more used to it in any case.)

Sakura had dealt with it in a different way. Throughout the year, she had pushed it all into a small corner of her mind and locked it up. All of it. Shinobi didn't have feelings.

When she was with TenTen or Ino, training with Tsunade or on hospital duty everything was fine. She even took on a mission or two, if not with the remains of Team 7.

Things were not the same, though. When Sakura was alone she felt dead. Empty.

At the end of the year, when Kiba returned from a mission fatally injured and Sakura had to push all of her chakra through Tsunade into him to heal him, she had an euphoria.

She needed a purpose in life. In the past it had been to bring Sasuke back and make Team 7 whole again. Now, she needed a different purpose. She never wanted to experience anything like that again. No people striving for power and revenge that would kill not only them, but many, many others. No more wars and useless death. She wanted to make the world a better place.

She wanted peace. She needed peace. Not only for her, but for everyone.

But she knew the old shinobi saying by heart:

he who wants peace prepares for war.

And so Sakura started preparing.


	2. Training

Sakura had packed her bags for the mission she, Kakashi, Naruto and Sai would be leaving for in just over half an hour. Sitting in the shade of the tree of her favourite training ground, it felt strangely comforting to be thinking about the past few years.

Even though it still hurt just the slightest bit, thinking about the day they had found Sasuke's body, and the year spend without any kind of strong feeling at all, she still felt pride in her new purpose she had found throughout that year. That day in the hospital when she swore an oath to herself to bring peace was the memory that gave Sakura herself the most inner peace she could have.

The next day she had spent all day training, taking her emotions out with her chakra-laden punches. Back then, she was only 17, but felt like she had lived thrice that long.

 **'Finally! We can't sit around moping forever. We're strong, but not strong enough. Not yet. We have to get stronger – for ourselves, not for Konoha, cha! We'll bring as much peace to this world as we can!** '

If possible, Inner was even more enthusiastic about Sakura's renewed sense of purpose.

In the two years after the day everything started to fall into place again Sakura, had become desperate to become stronger. Every minute of her free time (which was all the time besides hospital work and sleep) was spent on training.

Sakura wasn't stupid. Her pride had been crushed too many times to stand in the way of her seeking help to become stronger.

Taijutsu with Gai. Really, who else? The taijutsu master was always happy to take on any students who could survive training with him and Lee, and thankfully, because of Tsunade, Sakura was one of them. It had been a long and painful journey. Their training began at 5 o'clock in the morning and after that she had to go to the hospital. Luckily, because the training with Gai was only taijutsu, her chakra was left intact and she could do her hospital shifts in the afternoon.

You would think that, as a renowned taijutsu genius, there would be a line of potential students who wanted to be taught by Gai. When she asked the man this one day, he had laughed, and said he did get a few potential pupils every year. He always invited them to a mornfing session with him and Lee, and except for one chunin two years ago, that was it for those hopefuls. Some could not handle the dedication, but most could just not handle the Youth. And that, Gai had told her, was a very important condition if you wanted to be taught by him. Sakura had just laughed.

After thirteen months Gai declared she had learned everything she could from him and that her training was finished. Sakura had hugged the man, thankful for everything he had done for her. He also told her that she was still invited to spar with him and/or Lee whenever they both had the time. This was accompanied by the usual sparkling grin, thumbs-up and even the rainbow background as Gai and Lee hugged each other in joy when she had proclaimed she would join them for a spar as often as she could.

This was also the only time she had ever taken Lee up on the offer of a "friendly hug of Youth" which was less of a hug and more of a rib-crushing attack.

She had to heal three bruised ribs after Lee let her go.

(Sakura did not accept the hug Gai offered after she was done healing her ribs.)

Her and Lee had become friends over the years. The boy was odd, like his sensei, but Sakura wasn't bothered by that. He was real. He was honest and had a heart of gold. The spandex-clad duo carried the Will of Fire as no other did.

So she sparred with Lee pretty regularly and kept her taijutsu as strong as she could, both with her chakra-enhanced strength and without. The greatest compliment he could give her was that every time they sparred, he took his weights off. Even though she lost almost all the time – in the pure taijutsu spars - his company was worth it and she always felt valued after a spar with him. Lee was one of the few friends that regularly let her know that she was strong and that he liked her, or that 'she carried the power of Youth' and that 'he would run 100 laps around Konoha on his pinky finger to convince her of his dedication to her Youthful flower'. It meant about the same thing.

At 18, he and Ino were her closest friends. It pained her to admit it, but Naruto had slowly left that list. Naruto spend almost all his time with Hinata after she had confessed her love to him. Sakura wanted to be mad at him for leaving her, again, but when she saw them looking at each other she couldn't bring up the heart to scold Naruto for begin happy and paying attention to his girlfriend.

 **'He wouldn't listen to you, anyway.'** Inner remarked one day. Sakura had just bowed her head.

After finishing her training with Gai, she trained ninjutsu by herself, looking up jutsus in old scrolls and practicing those. She knew that her chakra affinity was earth. But when she decided to test her affinity again just to be sure, she discovered that the paper became slightly damp as well. She had developed a secondary affinity! Awesome! Even though it was not as strong as her earth affinity, this was still very nice. She liked earth because it was a defensive and supportive element. For water, most medics had a water affinity, so she supposed she'd partly developed it over the years.

She'd trained for months as best as she could, with the help of her two Kage Bunshin, courtesy of Naruto. The training went slower as she would have liked, combined with her hospital duties, keeping up with her taijutsu and doing some B- and C-ranked missions with other chunin and jounin, altough a two- or three day mission a month was still to low for her. It was all she had time for now, however. And with results; in the end she could do enough high-level earth-jutsu now to feel confident in her ninjutsu skills. She could also do most low- and mid-level water jutsu. Not wanting to neglect her other elements even though she had no affinity for it, Sakura learned a few low-level fire and wind jutsu. Lightning jutsu she didn't even try to learn. The chakra cost was far too high for her – it wasn't worth it.

While ninjutsu would never be her strong point, it felt good to know enough ninjutsu to save her life when it came to it. Ninjutsu would never be her area of excellence, but that was okay.

While she had excellent taijutsu (the training with Gai and Lee combined with Tsunade's technique made her a close-range expert) and good enough ninjutsu, she also wanted to start learning genjutsu.

She was complimented on her affinity for genjutsu a long time ago. Kakashi-'sensei' hadn't done anything with that information, and Sakura hoped it wasn't too late.

She sought out Kurenai, the genjutsu expert. The woman was shocked when Sakura told her she'd never learned even the basic genjutsu (except from the dispelling technique) from her former sensei and immediately made it her goal to give Sakura a solid arsenal of genjutsu. Nothing big, flashy or world changing – instead, Kurenai focused on the small but effective genjutsu that were both useful for a support and a front line fighter. Jutsu that messed with the target's hearing, or made him see you two inches to the left – and, of course, learning to break out of the bigger and more complex genjutsu Kurenai knew and cast upon her.

Genjutsu was something Sakura had the chakra control and capacity for, but she lacked the imagination and passion that made people like Kurenai a true genjutsu master. But, as Kurenai advised her, it would still make her a lot stronger. She just had to focus on small, barely noticeable but very effective genjutsu.

First, Sakura was a bit doubtful about this way of fighting, having never seen it before. But Kurenai showing her just how effective it was had made such an impression on her that she then became determined to learn as much as she could. She still was very thankful for the woman.

"You doubt my advice?" Kurenai asked with a smirk, not unkind, but very much superior.

Sakura scratched her head. "It's not that, it's just that I imagined us to be focusing on the genjutsu that ensnare all senses, or paralyse someone entirely, or…" she trailed off, realizing she sounded a bit pretentious.

Kurenai laughed. "Don't worry, I will make sure to teach you a few of those if you ever need them. But the true genjutsu users, like myself, rarely even use those. It is the smaller, but deadly jutsu you have to watch out for."

She pointed her finger at Sakura. "I'll show you. Attack me."

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "Now? Just like that?"

Kurenai shrugged. "We're in a small training field, so just use taijutsu and genjutsu. Okay? Now, come on!"

Sakura shrugged and darted forward, going for a series of quick, low punches without her chakra-enhanced strength. To her surprise, Kurenai dodged all of them. She didn't know the genjutsu mistress was that proficient and taijutsu. Moving back slightly, she twirled around and went for a left kick, confident Kurenai wouldn't be able to evade this.

But Kurenai had also twirled around towards her back, without any rush of wind that normally betrayed such a move. Even the tingly feeling that normally warned Sakura for an attack from behind was missing.

Kurenai grabbed her by the back of her neck, pulled her uptight and whispered in her ear: "See?"

Sakura narrowed her eyes and made a hand sign. "Kai!" she said softly and flared her chakra.

The sound of Kurenai's breathing, so soft that she did not even notice it disappear, suddenly started up again. The hairs on the back of Sakura's neck raised, and Sakura herself smiled.

"Yes. I see."

Kurenai let her go and patted her on the back. "With your fighting style, small genjustsu like that will make the difference between a hit and a miss."

Sakura nodded. "Your own taijutsu wasn't that shabby either, I must say." she complimented the other woman.

Kurenai just laughed. "I'm not a taijutsu expert. But there was a third genjutsu I had cast upon you, making you move more slowly without noticing. That is why I was able to dodge you."

Sakura shook her head. "Damn, that could be really useful indeed. But when did you cast them?"

Kurenai smirked again and pointed her finger at Sakura yet again.

Sakura laughed.

From that day on, Sakura had took everything Kurenai said very seriously, even when it did not make sense at first. She learned how to notice the slightest difference around her or in her own movement, how the absence of a sound could be just as telling as the sound itself, how to dispel genjutsu with only a thought and how to apply one with another.

She and Kurenai had really hit off. Kurenai avoided dangerous missions because of her child but still ached for some action. Kiba, Shino and Hinata and her still had their weekly meet-up but her days were otherwise not as full as she'd like them to be. Training Sakura, an enthusiastic and smart student, was something Kurenai embraced. Especially because genjutsu was not a popular subject in Konoha ever since the Uchiha Massacre. The clan who held all the passion and the knowledge about genjutsu had damaged Konoha's genjutsu expertise tremendously.

Training with Kurenai also gave Sakura a sense of companionship. The woman was more approachable than Tsunade, and soft in a certain way which meant she could always made Sakura feel at ease. Another side effect of her training was that most of the genjutsu used your own fears against you, so Sakura became used to sights like all her companions betraying her, or Konoha in flames with the undead body of Sasuke laughing in the background.

In her line of work, that was a good thing.

If she still had the energy required to make new friends, Kurenai would've been one. And even though she never spoke to her outside of their weekly training sessions, the woman still held both her respect and appreciation.

After the full two years of training Kurenai finally declared her a good genjutsu user. In the end, she even taught Sakura a few bigger jutsu, now that Sakura's chakra reserves had expanded just enough. Knowing the older woman's standards, Sakura felt proud. And she didn't even have that stupid Sharingan. The only thing that stopped her from being an great at genjutsu, especially her own genjutsu style, Kurenai told her, was field experience. Knowing a genjutsu and knowing when to use a genjutsu were different things, after all.

In fact, the only thing Sakura really lacked – not only in genjutsu, but also in ninjutsu and even in taijutsu – was field experience. That was something she could not train. After Sasuke was killed she hadn't really been in any kind of life-threatening situation because of her lack of high-ranked missions. She tagged along with different squads, but even with her tokubetsu jounin status hadn't been in charge a lot. Being a medic almost always guaranteed her a supportive role, never mind her taijutsu abilities. And the real dangerous stuff was left for teams like Team 7.

And Team 7 never asked her anymore.

Her training regime wasn't the only thing that had changed in Sakura's life. Throughout the remainder of the years after Sasuke had died, Sakura became more and more emotionally distant and closed off as she spent more and more time training. She could not remember the last time she had a sleepover or even a simple lunch date with Ino or TenTen or Hinata. After she had said no to those meetings a few times because she was so focused on getting stronger, meeting Gai instead of sleeping in and practicing ninjutsu instead of going out for lunch, the girls stopped asking her. At twenty, her world was yet again restricted to the hospital and the training grounds.

Maybe this was partly her fault as well. Maybe she should have said yes to one of those lunch dates - she could have practiced ninjutsu later.

But no. If she would start to procrastinate, she would never get stronger. The patients and other medics at the hospital were also friendly. Kurenai and Gai were very nice. Lee was her friend.

It was for the better, she told herself. She'd sacrificed her social life for the opportunity to become stronger. What did it matter, anyway? From what she saw, her friends were happy and that was all that mattered.

Wasn't it?

After the three years of training with a few missions in between, Sakura felt like a different woman. The hours and hours of training weren't without result. Her calves were strong and she could trace the muscles with her fingers even when she didn't tighten them. Her chakra-laden punches were even more effective than they used to – and even without chakra she could now put a few cracks in stone. Her arsenal of ninjutsu had quadrupled, mostly mid-level jutsu. Her genjutsu had gone from non-existent to very good.

She was strong.

Strong, but oh so lonely.

(shinobi didn't have emotions)

But still. She was content, she thought, with caring for her friends and keeping them safe... They knew what she did for them. For Konoha. For peace. Her work at the hospital had saved hundreds of lives and her work as Tsunade's second assistant saved hundreds more.

(She remembered the first missions she went on without the rest of team 7. Her first team called her 'pinky' the whole time. The second mission was with a new team. Her then-captain greeted her with: 'You're the medic that had a crush on that traitor Uchiha, right?'. Her death glare had shut him right up.

Six missions (and months) later was the first time she got a greeting that was not related to her hair or her past crush. She was not sure if 'You used to be part of Team 7, right?' was a better greeting or not.)

Apart from her reputation, the missions still went well. She was making the world better. Maybe not the whole world, but she did as much as one person could do.

She was happy. Mostly.

But the voice in the back of her head was not content. And, not surprisingly, Inner agreed.

 **"You wanted to bring peace. We wanted to bring peace. I mean, yeah, Lee and Kurenai are nice, and working in the hospital is all well and fine, but what do we really contribute to this world?**

 **Everyone we heal just goes out back in the field to bring more destruction and war. For every life we save, we indirectly destroy ten others. And all of this for Konoha.**

 **Do you really believe Konoha wants peace? Konoha just wants money, power and territory. They might be nicer about it than the other villages: In the end, all they care about is themselves."**

Laying in her bed, staring at the ceiling as Inner kept asking these questions, Sakura did not have an answer.

But she could not bring herself to do something different. She worked as hard as she could to make herself stronger. What else could she do? Complain to Tsunade? Sow unrest among the Konoha shinobi? Attacking Konoha from the inside? That would both be treason, harm her friends, and could even lead to other hidden villages gaining strength. And that was even worse.

 **"No, stupid. We could just leave."**

"What? As in, become a missing-nin?"

 **"Why not? Out there, we could be free: we could travel wherever our help was needed, save whomever we deemed worthy and stop whatever war or conflict was brewing. We would be helping people who just wanted to live their lives in peace, instead of shinobi who only want to live their lives in war!"**

"Be silent, Inner. That is treason you are talking. That's… wrong."

 **"You know what else is wrong?"**

Sakura ignored Inner. She also ignored the little voice inside her head, which whispered that Inner was right.

But no. Her team valued her. Both her sensei valued her. Her friends valued her. She was happy, and that was enough. No life was perfect.

Until that day in the hospital.

The day she had successfully healed her first S-ranked injury, the patient who was brought in already declared hopeless when they started treating him. But she healed him. Just her: no Tsunade, no Shizune, only one hospital assistant who kept the patient calm.

When she walked out of the operation room, covered in blood with all her chakra gone and saw her old team standing there… She'd felt so happy. They had come for her, to congratulate her on a job well done! They remembered her! They valued her! It was good to know they didn't underestimate the difficulty and importance of her job. Of her life.

As they walked towards her she greeted them with a big smile. In return, Kakashi gave her an eye crinkle, Sai nodded and Naruto gave her his trademark grin. But after those brief reactions they walked straight past her with a simple 'Hello, Sakura-chan!' Turned out they were visiting Yamato, who was fatally injured on his last mission with them.

They never bothered to find out she was the one who rescued Yamato from the brink of death.

Her team had been underestimating her yet again. She was trained by Tsunade, and Gai, and Kurenai for Kami's sake! She did nothing but train! Maybe she didn't go on as much missions as she used to, and no S-ranked missions like team 7 went on, but that wasn't for lack of strength.

The missions she had taken over the past year showed that. She mostly did B-ranked missions, and sometimes A-ranked, and most of the chunin and jonin she worked with liked her and respected her skills as a medic. None of these missions had gone dramatically wrong yet, unlike almost every other mission team 7 had done, but that was okay. She was capable. Why did they not see that?

" **They don't know what you can do. You've spend the last three years training, but not many people noticed it. Just bide your time and we'll show them someday, cha!** " Inner said in a mix of anger, sadness and determination.

Even after all these years, Konoha still thought of her as the weak little girl with a crush on Sasuke. She wasn't twelve anymore. She was freaking twenty. She was a woman, a kunoichi and a damn strong one too. She may not be in the Bingo Book like Kakashi, Naruto and even Sai, but that was because she didn't go on as much missions as they did.

She wasn't worthless.

The feeling of hopelessness brought Sakura out of her reminiscing and into the presence. Folding her hands together, she walked to the top of the tree, sat down, and looked out over Konoha.

Sitting in the tree, a little more than half an hour left before her mission with Team 7, Sakura brushed her hair from her face and let her head fall in her hands. Maybe they were right. She could cheer herself up all she wanted, but that didn't erase the fact that Tsunade didn't send her out on important missions anymore. Or that Kakashi hadn't seen any potential in her when she was young. Or that she was too weak to beat or convince Sasuke to come back before his death.

She was only kidding herself, Sakura thought as a tear appeared in her eye. All those years, training and slaving herself down, it was all for nothing. She was just another backline tokubetsu jounin, only useful as a medic. It was her own fault she didn't have the balls to ask to lead a team or assault for once. It was her own fault for being so pathetic and weak.

 **'Sakura! Snap out of it! Don't fall into some stupid depression now, goddamnit! Don't think so lowly of yourself. Strength is more than the number of S-ranked jutsu you can throw at someone! You are strong and you know it!'**

'No, I don't and I'm not. Everybody knows the only thing I do is cry. What would you know about my skills?'

' **I am you, stupid! And I've been with you all the way, from the training at fucking 5am to the forbidden jutsu scroll we stole and the promises we made ourselves. We are strong! And today, when we finally go on a S-class mission with Team 7, we'll show them what we're worth!**

 **It's their fault for underestimating us! It's their fault for ignoring us! And we will show them, cha!'**

The pink-haired girl wiped the tears from her eyes, angry at herself for crying. Angry at herself for caring.

The time to be little, to be led by her feelings, was over. There was a storm coming, she could feel it in her bones, and she wanted to be at the centre of it. She wanted to be the centre of it. It was time to stop crying and start fighting. It was time to swallow her weaknesses and start acting like the kunoichi she aspired to be.

When she raised her head, her eyes were hard. Inner was right.

 **'Damn right girl, show them what we're made of! Shannaro!'**

Sakura was mad now, her sadness turned into anger. Inner's pep talk was just what she needed. She would show them! She wouldn't let them down, not like they let her down. She wouldn't be better than anyone expected – she would be so much more.

I will never cry again, not like this. That is a promise. They don't deserve it.

They don't deserve me.

The last three years had taken their toll. Sakura had changed from the happy, bright and bubbly girl she used to be before Sasuke's death into something more cold. Her eyes had become hooded and her smile had grown fake. Her heart had closed off more and more as her friends stopped visiting her until the shell around her was seemingly unbreakable.

Nobody saw her change. Not a single one of her friends saw her suffering, not even Tsunade, who had taken on Hinata as her new apprentice a few weeks ago. Her Hokage hadn't even asked Sakura if she would be alright with it. She just told Sakura one morning, saying that she had learned Sakura everything she could and that is was time for a new apprentice.

Lee sometimes looked at her strongly, but a forced smile from her made him look away. Kurenai didn't even notice, distracted by her old team and her son. Nobody thought it weird that Sakura spend all her time training. They didn't notice that she never laughed out loud anymore.

They never saw the real her, longing for a compliment or recognition. And because nobody saw the façade, the real Sakura changed a lot. She was breaking, slowly, her goal of finding peace the only thing keeping her whole at night. But on days like this, after overhearing her old team trash-talk about her and remembering Konoha's treatment of her over the years, it wasn't enough.

Not once did her friends or village heal her, as she healed them every day.

And more and more often Sakura started to wonder if she was happy here. If this was really all her life would be: trying but never succeeding, being strong but not recognized, taken for granted.

Was she happy here? She wasn't sure anymore.

Did she deserve this?

 **'No.'** Inner Sakura answered for her.

Did Konoha still deserve her?

Inner stayed silent.


	3. Fighting

Even though Sakura had spent the last few hours re-living the last few years, realizing quite a few things and – dare she even think it – contemplating treason, she was finally going on a mission with team 7 again, and that was enough to brighten her spirits.

After a little less than half an hour had passed Sakura had left her tree and shunshin'd through Konoha, walking the last part peacefully towards Konoha's gate. Knowing her old team, Kakashi would leave them waiting for half an hour at least.

'Hello, Sakura-chan!' Naruto called for her, leaning again Konoha's gate. Her eyes narrowed, but only for a moment. How she hated that suffix.

'You're here, hag. Now we can move.' Sai greeted her. Sakura just sighed, before her eyes landed on the third person standing at the gate.

'Kakashi- uh- sensei?' she stumbled, not used to calling him that anymore. It had been a long time ago since she had been under his command. It should have felt like coming home.

It didn't.

'You're already here?' Sakura said, a little shocked. After her realization just half an hour ago her emotions felt duller than before. Still, this was quite a surprise. She had never seen Kakashi arrive on time.

Kakashi gave her his eye-crinkle, not even noticing her stumble. 'I'm always on time for important missions, Sakura-chan. I thought you knew that.'

She looked at the ground, a little ashamed at the tone of Kakashi's voice. The truth was, she didn't know. The only official A-ranked mission she had ever gone on with Kakashi was the one in Wave, a long time ago. The attempts to retrieve Sasuke were unranked. And just like the mission in wave, all other high-ranked missions she had been on with Team 7 started out as C- and B-ranked.

Team 7 had a tendency to attract trouble.

'Now go.'

And they were off, running through the woods of Konoha. They ran at a normal pace, resting ten minutes after six hours of running. Sakura was used to this pace by now, as all B-ranked mission and above used this pace.

Kakashi took point, Sai and Sakura were in the middle and Naruto at the rear.

'Hey, Ugly.' Sai suddenly began. Sakura, even after at least several months of not speaking to Sai, was used to his social skills and made an humming, inquiring sound.

'Don't you think this mission is above your current strength level?'

Sakura blinked, and almost missed a step. She took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice steady when she answered. If this was anyone else but Sai, she would have punched whomever dared to say this to her.

Inner huffed in agreement, and Sakura could feel her anger.

'Why do you say that, Sai? You know how strong I am.' she answered in a dangerous tone.

Naruto, ever so subtle, had come closer and was not-so-sneakily making 'abort' signs with his hands behind her back. Kakashi had run on a little further ahead and was out of earshot.

'I know you are a very capable medic, and your taijutsu is good, but your ninjutsu is barely adequate and your genjutsu is low, even for a tokubetsu jõunin. A S-level mission like this requires more than that. Protocol allows for tokubetsu jõunin to attend S-ranked missions, but is is not advised. I agree with this'

Sai then ducked, out of years of experience an automatic reflex in Sakura's presence, especially after saying things he had to know where socially unacceptable – like this.

But no punch came.

Instead, Sakura smiled slightly, and answered 'Our Hokage deemed me capable enough to join you on this mission. Do you doubt her knowledge or her judgement?'

 **'I sure do for putting us with this idiot.'** Inner murmured.

Sai's face became blank. 'No, of course not.'

Sakura gave no response, and Sai stared straight ahead after that. But Sai's eyes were narrowed and he held his left index finger slightly crooked, so Sakura knew he was tensed and, well, annoyed.

Annoyed that she could actually find a legit way to defend herself without resorting to violence.

And just as Sakura wanted to take another deep breath, Naruto had to open his mouth.

'You know, Sakura-chan, I'm sure Sai didn't mean to be an asshole.' With this he gave Sai a glare. 'He just meant that we are concerned that something will happen to you on this mission, and I want to protect you and make sure you are not harmed!'

Sakura sighed. Naruto's drive for protecting his 'precious people', proving his own strength, and taste for drama and attention were normally good things – until it got to the point were he disrespected his so-called 'precious people' by not letting them stand on their own feet or acknowledging their strength and independence.

Like he had done to Sakura since he had a crush on her in the Academy. Naruto would never see her as anything but the small, shy, pretty little girl who was nothing but book-smarts and cried when you said a mean word.

'I can protect myself.' she answered Naruto briskly, the appreciation of the good intentions behind what he was saying warring within her with the hate of the refusal of acknowledging her strength.

'I know you are strong.' Naruto answered, scratching the back of his head and laughing sheepishly. 'But you know, there are always chances to become stronger. I train to become stronger every day!'

 **'And you think I don't?!'** Inner spat, while outwards Sakura her eyes narrowed, knowing Naruto wasn't done talking yet.

'This mission is S-ranked, you know, so this is a whole other level. And I know you yourself, like me, can only become stronger! You are already the best medic I know save Granny, but there are many other areas you can still train in and improve!' Naruto continued, sounding like he was lecturing Konohamaru and not realizing it.

'Maybe you could make your taijustu even better when you train with a different teacher or sparring partner! Ever thought of Lee? Or what about looking into genjutsu – I know Hinata's sensei has some free time since Asuma died… uh, ah, right, Kurenai was her name. Then you can get even stronger!' Naruto told her, flashing her a blinding smile at the end.

'You could even apply to become a full jõunin at the exams next year!'

Naruto made a peace sign and beamed cheerfully at her, expecting her to smile at the tips and thank him for his advice. He was a good friend for helping Sakura-chan become stronger!

Instead, he was met with a cold stare.

Naruto was so surprised that he stumbled, seeing the cold, dead look in his teammate's eyes. How could Sakura-chan have eyes like that? Those eyes were not the ones of his beloved, precious Sakura-chan: those were the eyes of an enemy.

But when Naruto straightened from his stumble and looked again in Sakura's eyes, the cold had vanished and the dim light he had gotten used to over the last years was back.

'That's an interesting idea, Naruto. Thanks for the tip.' the pink-haired girl answered, smiling slightly. Naruto gave her a thumbs up, still feeling uncomfortable, and slowed his step to take rear point again. Still, looking at the back of Sakura's head, he wondered if he was missing something.

No. This was his Sakura-chan, the teammate he trusted with his life and whom he had known the longest of all his precious people. If there was something wrong with her, she would tell him. She was probably just exhausted from the long run: she is not used to this kind of missions, he told himself.

Still, the uncomfortable feeling in his gut would not go away.

* * *

On the inside, Sakura was silent.

For the first time in her life, Sakura felt like her body was running completely on autopilot as she experienced two things at once.

One half of her mind was running along the forest with team 7.

The other half was standing in a clearing – a familiar one. There was a large crater in the middle with smaller craters all around them. The forest had been burned down, but everything was quiet. Here, she felt the how cold her heart felt after the blows Naruto had just, unknowingly, dealt her. Even bringing up her not-yet jounin status. That felt more like a knife then a blow. She could almost hear the echos of Sasuke's taunts from years past. Weak. Useless. Pathetic.

Those words echoing in her head, she was less surprised at where half of her mind suddenly was. She looked around in numb detachment at the clearing around her.

It was the clearing in which they had found Sasuke's body.

As Sakura took slow steps – was she even walking? She did not feel like she was walking – towards the place where they found Sasuke, she saw another figure crouched there. The figure was casting some kind of fire jutsu, seemingly throwing her anger at the crate, the bare earth that did not react in the slightest.

It was her. Well, not quite her – more like an alternative version of herself. This Sakura's hair was darker, pink so dark it almost seemed dark red, and far more muscular. She was a bit taller, it seemed, and when this Sakura turned around, her features were sharper, more angry, more bitter, more scarred than Sakura's.

The image felt familiar. The word slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.

'Inner.'

The other Sakura – Inner – righter herself and turned around to face her. Inner's eyes were also darker, more intense, as if Inner herself was Sakura's strongest experiences, emotions and actions – both the positive ones, like resolve, resilience and resolution, but also the negative ones, like mindless anger, loss of self-control and love of violence.

Come to think of it, there was a good chance that was a large part of what Inner was.

 **'Sakura. I… did not expect to see you here.'** Inner said, mouth moving slowly as if she had not used it before, eyes wide and surprised.

It was clear Inner was still very, very angry about what Naruto had said – her whole body was tense, her hands clenched in fists, her mouth a grim line.

'Me neither. Is this were you normally… are?' She wanted to say 'live' but it did not seem appropriate.

 **'Yeah. It has been since that day.'**

'I…' Sakura started to stretch a hand out towards Inner, her Inner, but the clearing with the craters started to flicker, and the forests of Konoha and the sounds of running footsteps was becoming clearer.

 **'Wait!'**

Sakura blinked, her mouth fallen open in shock, hands slightly trembling, as the two world became one again and she felt in control of her body again, running along Team 7.

A slight stumble and her trembling hands were all her teammates could and did notice about the whole thing.

The rest of the journey Sakura spend deep in thought, detached from the standard journey they were taken in the relative safety of the land of Fire.

Her teammates did not even know she had been training. How could Naruto not have heard it through Hinata? How could Kakashi never have seen her and Lee or Gai at the crack of dawn, or heard it through Gai's boosting, and told his team?

Why did they still not trust her or her strength?

 **'Never mind Team 7. We have known for a long time they don't appreciate or respect us, and even if they make up these so-called good reasons for their concern, we deserve people around us who recognize our strength.**

 **And more importantly – what the hell happened with us?'**

'I don't know, Inner. But…'

 **'Yeah?'**

'I never quite realized you really are your own person. Somehow, I always thought you were a part of me, but still me, but what just happened…

Maybe you are more than that.'

Inner was silent, deep in thought.

After eighteen hours, Kakashi signalled to stop. 'Is everyone okay?' he asked, looking at her. She frowned and nodded. It was clear Kakashi only asked this on her behalf. If Kakashi had noticed their short argument and her detachment after it, he did not show it.

 **'Ignore it. We can show them later.'** Inner replied softly, still quiet and contemplative from the earlier experience but attentive.

Kakashi nodded and started his briefing. 'A few miles from here is the town where our target, Tayam, was last seen. We will set up an ambush on the road that connects this and the next village. Our target is known for his confidence and doesn't shy away from the road. A fool.' Privately, Sakura agreed.

Kakashi continued. 'The criminal is likely to travel to the next city between now and five hours. Keep your eyes open.

Your positions are as usual. Naruto will meet the target on the road to and engage. As soon as the target focuses his attention on Naruto, Sai and I will follow up. Sakura, you're the backup. Wait for my signal.

Kakashi turned to look at her and paused. 'And I'm serious, Sakura. Wait for my signal. We don't know how strong our target is exactly, and you should stay safe, we may need you afterwards.' he said with an eye-crinkle. Sakura bit back a grimace at his words.

Soon, she was hidden in the forest on the side of the road, not using genjutsu as the chakra used could attract attention, with Kakashi in front of her, ready to attack at any moment. Again, she was the back-up, but this time it was understandable. After all, backing her team up was a medic's job.

' **Keep your head in the game. Show them what you're made of.'** Inner told her, the traditional –cha notably absent.

They were lucky. Barely two hours later a lone figure appeared on the road. The man fit the description. Long, blond hair. Green eyes. He carried two katanas on his back and wore a slashed Sand headband. It was easy.

Too easy.

It started smoothly. Naruto distracted, Kakashi and Sai attacked, she waited.

The fight was harder than they'd anticipated. The criminal used a long-range jutsu that could hit multiple targets and Naruto was forbidden to use the Kyuubi except for dire circumstances. The missing Sand-nin was a very strong A-rank shinobi.

This they had expected, but it was still an intense battle. In fact, Sakura was surprised it took this long. Kakashi and Naruto were two of Konoha's best. On the other hand, the criminal was only defending himself for now. He seemed to use a defensive technique that made him very resistant to damage, similar to Gaara's sand armour. Sadly, she couldn't make out the details with the speed of the fight and her distance from it.

After almost ten minutes of intense fighting, they all looked exhausted, with only Naruto looking 'just' tired, but no one had won yet. However, Sakura could see that the chances were in their favour. She could also see that her team had quite a few injuries that needed healing.

 **'I thought the legendary Team 7 was supposed to be stronger than this. It's three against one!'**

Secretly, she agreed with her Inner.

'To be honest, it seems like our target is… stalling. He isn't really initiating any attacks but is blocking most. This is why he's still alive, but it's clear he doesn't stand a chance. Why would he stall them and not try to escape?'

Her green eyes followed the criminals movements as he evaded an attack from Kakashi. She couldn't help but suspect that the criminal had encountered a Sharingan user before. Kakashi had used his from the start, which drained his chakra very fast, but few of his attacks landed, and Tayam had not looked into the Sharingan once. Tayam was surprisingly fast, and stronger than they originally thought.

Kakashi had not given her a signal. Should she engage anyway? Her presence could tip the scales. But Kakashi knew she was there, and had enough time to make a signal. But he didn't. Was that for a reason, or did he once again not think she was strong enough? He had said explicitly to wait for his signal... But a shinobi who abandoned his teammates is worse than dirt...

Not that Kakashi himself had followed his own golden rule regarding her.

Their target summoned all his strength for another attack, clearly his last. He trapped Sai in an earth jutsu and moved his katana towards Sai's neck. Tayam had targeted Sai the whole fight, apparently noticing that he was the weakest of the three. Sai's right arm was disabled halfway through the fight and he had lost quite some blood. He was holding a kunai in front of him with his working arm, not getting enough space form Tayam to use his ink. When Naruto blocked the attack for Sai, the criminal took his other katana and aimed at Naruto.

He must have known the blond would defend his comrade. Naruto was predictable like that, and had done this a few times before in their fight. Just as Naruto aimed a Rasengan at him, he threw his chakra-laden katana at Naruto's stomach.

And hit.

Naruto screamed and collapsed, his concentration and the Rasengan gone, clutching his stomach. The criminal grinned. Sai was trapped and weak and Naruto was wounded. He held his other katana high and aimed for Naruto's hart.

He never hit. In all the commotion, Kakashi had snuck behind the criminal and had used all his remaining power for a chidori.

Why he did not simply use a kunai, Sakura did not know.

In a matter of seconds, it was over. Naruto lay on the ground, unconscious, but alive. Red chakra started to bubble around the wound in his stomach, and even in unconsciousness she could see his teeth grinding together, presumably holding back the Kyuubi. Sai saw that his friend was safe and visibly sagged, looking around for Kakashi. And her, maybe.

Sakura had put her shuriken, aimed at the now fallen katana, away when she saw Kakashi attack. She had wanted to jump in earlier, but Kakashi still hadn't given her the sign to attack- almost like he'd forgotten she was there.

 **'You should've just fought with them. You've blown you chance to prove to them how strong you are. We should have known Kakashi would be too stubborn to give us the signal, probably because he was – surprise!- 'trying to protect us' or some of that bullshit.'** Inner said disapprovingly. Sakura hung her head. Inner was right.

'It doesn't matter. What's done is done. Now I have more than enough chakra to heal them.' Sakura told Inner as she tried to shake the feeling of dread. Right now she had a job to do.

Sakura appeared in the field and started to examine Sai. When Sai saw her approach, he closed his eyes and let himself fall into unconsciousness with a grimace. Sakura just shook her head. Luckily, the only injuries he had were his arm, a slash on his leg from the katana, and exhaustion. His arm was blocked with a chakra barrier, but now that Tayam was dead she could cancel that barrier easily. She healed his arm and leg and let him rest.

She moved to Naruto and the dead criminal. A shot of chakra through the criminal's body confirmed that he was dead. She laid a hand on Naruto's stomach and closed the wound superficially, trusting the Kyuubi to do the rest. Surprisingly, she found quite some poison in his system, and even though she could feel the Kyuubi burning it away, it explained why Naruto was down. The poison must have killed other shinobi in second, but the powerhouse that was called Naruto only had to take a nap.

Other than that, Naruto was not injured. She was no match for the nine-tailed fox. Naruto would easily survive the injury. He was also exhausted, though, but that wouldn't last long with Kyuubi's stamina.

Turning back to Sai, she cheked the wound around his leg, searching for the same poison she found in Naruto. There was none in Sai's bloodstream, luckily. So the poison was not on the katana - it must have been another attack that Tayam used. Better check Kakashi too.

She turned to Kakashi, who was watching her with a careful expression.

'I've got it, Kakashi. Don't worry.' were the last words Kakashi heard before the world went black. His only thought was where the '-sensei' had gone.

When Sakura saw Kakashi fall to the ground, she rolled her eyes briefly. Overused his beloved jutsu again. For all their talk and powers, Team 7 had a tendency to overuse their most powerful (and power-draining) jutsus and collapse from exhaustion sooner than necessary. In fights like this, they became overconfident, and that was their downfall. She wanted to tell them, but knew they wouldn't listen. But hey, that is why she had come along.

To clean up.

To heal, to take care of their messes, not to be thanked for it again and again.

She turned her attention to Kakashi. Chakra exhaustion, three broken ribs and a wound on the shoulder. Again, if he had stopped using his Sharingan when it was clear Tayam would not be caught in his gaze, or used a kunai instead of a chidori, he would have still been awake.

Idiot.

A few seconds later she was done. She moved them all to the side of the road, sealed Tayam's body in the designated scroll, and surveyed her surroundings.

Her team had done worse than she had guessed. But she knew what went wrong here: they were not used to opponents who didn't fight back and extended the fight as long as possible. Tayam had only made few offensive moves, two of which to finish Sai and Naruto, and the reason her team was out cold was not because of their injuries, but only because of their exhaustion.

If they hadn't underestimated their opponent, if they had gauged his defenses and realized they'd have to wear him out first, they would not have started off with their most powerful attacks and be unnecessarily exhausted.

Luckily, the few injuries they'd gotten were easily healed by someone like her. Exhaustion wasn't fatal and Sakura knew Naruto would wake up soon.

 **'I still think you should've jumped in earlier, Sakura! Now we didn't get to show them anything!'** Inner shouted and started moping around in her head.

'Orders are orders, Inner. Kakashi didn't give me the sign.' She almost sounded convincing.

The green-eyed girl shook her head at her Inner's antics and lay the bodies of her teammates under a tree. She was contemplating how to get them back to Konoha-

'Tayam!'

A voice in the distance. A chakra signature slowly approached - and obviously one that was familiar with their target.

Danger.

Always the fast thinker, Sakura had casted a minor genjutsu to hide her team. She knew chakra traces lingered in the air for about an hour, so hiding Tayam was of no use since the stranger could surely feel his chakra signature.

A man with the same eyes and same hair colour as their target appeared on the road in the distance. He looked almost the same as their target.

If not for the man shouting Tayam's name, she would have started doubting they had killed the right target. Shit.

'Tayam! I know I felt your chakra signature spike somewhere over here! Where are you?'

As soon as the man saw her and the body of Tayam, which she had purposefully left uncovered, hoping this would both distract and anger this unknown man.

'Bitch! You will pay for this!' the man seethed as soon as he realized what he was looking at.

Sakura said nothing and moved into a fighting stance.

 **'So this is why Tayam was stalling.** '

'You're one of those Konoha shinobi, right? Pff. I will kick your ass, stupid little kunoichi. I don't even know how you've beaten my brother! It must have been luck. Have you any idea how long I have spent training him? And just when he was about to reach my level, a bitch like you comes by and kills him. And with that kill you've signed your death warrant!'

'Looks like we still get a chance to test our mettle. A shame our team has fallen asleep.'

Sakura just smiled, her slight nervousness turned into adrelin with Inner's encouragement.

The man pulled a sword from his back and aimed at Sakura. Sakura didn't even hesitate and blocked the attack. He packed a punch, but it was nothing compared to Tsunade. She followed up with a chakra-laden fist towards his head, but he doged to the left. The air between his ear and her fist was pushed forward together with her fist, and she saw his eyes narrow. Before she could follow up with another punch, she had to bend backwards to avoid his sword.

They started moving and jumping around each other, testing the other, him dodging her blows and her dodging his sword. Until he made a slightly to large sweep, which created an opening she took and punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

He grunted and was pushed back, but she did not hear any bones crack like she expected. Instead, the sound of her hit was damped, as if she had hit the ground instead of a body.

Some kind of earth-armor. That was good to know.

Changing the way she molded her chakra, her next blows she made as if she wanted to shatter the earth instead of break bones. The next blow she landed, just to the left of his ribs, shattered a part of the earth armour.

The man flipped backward, the cracked armor slowly repairing himself. He didn't give any indication of the pain of the blow.

She should've known it would not be that easy.

'You're stronger than you look. Time to let the real fun begin!' the criminal said with a grin. He was clearly enjoying this, his rage slowly turning to grim determination.

He made hand signs at a rapid speed and Sakura moved to evade. 'Fuuton: Kaze ya no justu!'

A bow appeared in his hand, made of chakra. In his other hand, an arrow appeared. He put the arrow on the bow, aimed and shot.

Tayam had used spear-like objects made of chakra to throw at team 7. This seemed to be the completed version of that technique.

Sakura tried to block but was not as fast as the arrow and took a hit in the shoulder. The criminal smiled arrogantly, but stopped when the Sakura turned into a log.

'Come out, Pinky, it's playtime!'

Sakura rolled her eyes at the unoriginal nickname. But she should ignore his attitude. He was dangrous. Another A-rank criminal, maybe even stronger than his brother, with the completed bow-and-arrow technique. These chakra arrows looked very painful.

And she had no lightning attacks to pierce his earth armor. Damn her low chakra reserves!

Sakura prepared herself to jump and the attack. She had already formed a plan of attack in her head.

Just as she started the Kage Bunshin technique an arrow landed next to her knee and she jumped away.

'There you are, little bitch!'

Another arrow. If she dodged with her hands, she would still get hit. She could evade, but there was little room in the trees. Maybe…

She used her often-praised perfect chakra control and let the arrow hit her in the shoulder.

It bounced of harmlessly.

Sakura let out a breath. She had gathered a small but very concentrated pool of chakra on the spot the arrow would hit her, the chakra extending just above her skin. Chakra met chakra, not flesh, thus no damage.

'You- What-!' the shinobi splutterd. Clearly, this was a first for him.

 **'He's clearly not the smartest kid in the schoolyard.'** Inner scoffed.

She took advantage of his rage and slammed her foot into the earth, creating a ripple through the ground which the enemy had to evade. He narrowed his eyes at her monstrous strength.

Another arrow. This time Sakura simply jumped and evaded it. She landed next to a tree.

As the criminal readied another arrow, Sakura ripped the tree from the ground and lifted it above her head. Dashing to the left while avoiding another arrow, she threw it at the criminal.

Her enemy had stopped shouting insults at her and jumped towards her. Sakura, wanting to stay away from him now she could negate his arrows, also jumped backwards.

Sakura narrowed her eyes and formed hand signs while she jumped on a branch from a tree a few feet behind her. Another arrow flew in her direction.

Since she was concentrating on the hand seals, she jumped to the left this time to avoid it. Another arrow, and another miss. They chased each other around for a bit until she finished the many hand seals for one of the strongest genjutsu she knew. Better to end this quickly. As Kurenai had taught her, strong genjutsu like these only worked once in a battle and you had to work quick.

'Genjutsu: Furuiryūjon' she whispered and concentrated. A full-illusion genjutsu misleading all five senses. It created a fake-battle with a fake-Sakura which was going to go the way the enemy thought it would.

When the criminal jumped after her again, aiming another arrow, she moved down swiftly and smiled when he didn't follow her but instead followed imaginary-her to the main road. Her genjutsu had worked.

When she looked around her, she saw that they were back where they had started, with the dead body of Tayam next to her.

Her current opponent was standing still in the middle of the road, his arms and legs twitching, fighting a Sakura that only existed in his mind. Sakura took a deep breath. She didn't like killing this way, but she also had no problems doing it, even though it cost her quite a lot of chakra.

She walked towards the criminal, careful not to make any sound, hand raised.

She needed bare skin. Hands or face?

Face was more likely to wake him up. Hands it is. Gathering chakra, she made a series of quick jabs toward his right hand, shattering the earth armor around it.

But just as she cracked his armor, the criminal's eyes re-focused and his chakra fluctuated. Turning his head toward her, he gripped her neck with both hands and grinned manically.

'You think you defeated me? You were stronger than I thought, kunoichi, but you will never-'

She did not like to do this. It did not feel… right. But the choice between playing dirty and being dead was easy.

Sakura closed her eyes and concentrated. The contact, skin on skin, the armor of his right hand not yet repaired, was there and it was enough. She would have to improvise a little because the original jutsu send the chakra pulse through her hand but with Sakura's level of chakra control sending it through her neck would work as well.

With her mouth set in a grim line of concentration, the hands of the criminal putting preasure on her neck and cutting of her airway, he was going to snap her neck she should hurry hurry concentrate-

A a pulse of chakra. Through her neck, to his hand, towards his chest, and straight into the tenketsu above his heart.

The tenketsu closed off.

His heart stopped.

The criminal still had his last laugh on his face as his body slid toward the earth.

She fell to her knees, gasping for breath. Her own hands shot to her throat, healing the bruise that was forming there.

 **'It worked! Damn girl, it actually worked! Not bad for a first try, cha!'**

'It may have worked, but it took a third of my chakra, Inner. Forcefully stopping a heart meets a lot of resistance from the body. And I had to get though his thicker skin, too.'

 **'Who cares. That kinda thing may be problematic in group fights, but for one-on-one battles it's perfect. He's dead! Stealing that one forbidden scroll for this was so worth it.'**

Sakura rolled her eyes, took a deep breath and closed her eyes for just a moment. She felt happy. Victorious. This was the first time she had used her new technique in battle, as she could not practise lethal techniques in sparring. At one point, she had been down in the medical archives and stumbled upon a scroll speculating the potential of forcing a heart-attack on a person through thoroughly overloading the tenketsu above the heart.

The person devising this technique, a Hyuuga by the name of Kamari, had for whatever reason not finished this idea, and the Hyuuga must have had it stored away in a dusty, high-level clearance medical archive because they did not approve of this butchering of their honoured techniques.

So it fell to Sakura to work it out.

And she did. Today, she had seen how well the technique worked, and even with the high charka cost this would be an insta-kill for, well, 99% of the shinobi.

She was strong, she thought as her eyes opened again and a smile appeared on her face.

Sakura couldn't see it, but her smile was just a bit on the crazy side.

Meanwhile, the body of the criminal had hit the earth.

Sakura looked at the body, contemplating.

What should she do now?

As soon as the thought shot through her head she felt the hairs in the back of her neck raise and immediately dropped into an alert stance. She could act as if she hadn't noticed, but if there really was someone watching her she was in the open and they weren't so she better stand guard.

Which brought her to the question… Was there anyone spying on her, who had seen her fight? Or was it nothing? Was she just too tense?

She turned around and scanned the area, but could find no trace of chakra and no sound of movement or breathing.

However, that could be concealed. What couldn't be concealed was someone's heartbeat. And Sakura could send chakra to her ears to enhance her hearing and pick up someone's heartbeat.

In the corner of her eye, a squirrel shot out of the bushes and dashed across the main road.

Sakura didn't drop her guard – she wasn't distracted by a simple squirrel. As she formed a hand sign to initiate her enchanted hearing technique, she hesitated.

 **'Chill, Sakura. You're being paranoid. I can't sense anybody and we still have to carry all of them back to Konoha, so we can't exactly waste our chakra. Let's just get out of here.**

 **Even if there is someone watching us, they haven't ambushed us yet, and they had the time when we were done killing Tayam's brother. So either there is no one there, or the persons hiding have no intention of harming us. Let us not provoke them and move as quickly as possible."**

Sakura sighed and obeyed. Dropping her hands but not her guard, she first turned toward her teammates. She would take care of the body later.

Checking that the three unconscious teammates were still okay, she started preparing carriers for them. She could probably swing Kakashi over her shoulder, and take the other two in a carrier, but what about the body of the second criminal?

She should take it with her. She should explain what happened, and maybe the other criminal, who was clearly the leader of the duo, had more important information on him.

But how would she carry him? She did not have a second corpse-sealing scroll with her, and she did know if her teammates did.

It would also mean another body to carry and more danger to be attacked by bounty hunters.

But they were relatively safe in the land of Fire.

 **'Naruto should wake up soon. He can carry the dead body, then you can carry Kakashi and Sai. Problem solved. We're still fit enough to carry these four at least an hour or two. We can always set up camp then.'**

'True'.

And then the hairs on her neck and arms stood straight up.

Fuck!

Moving quickly, hands already half formed in a seal, she knew it was more than a squirrel, she turned around towards the bodies of the two criminals-

And looked straight into two red, spinning, eyes.

* * *

In the shadows of the trees a good distance away, a body slung over the taller one's shoulder, two cloaked figures moved away from the battlefield. Their pace was fast, but silent. After a short time, the taller one spoke.

'Man, Pein-sama is going to be pissed. He had plans for this guy. I'm still not sure if it was smart to steal the body under that chick's nose and leave her alive like that, however much I admired her fighting style.'

'He was a security risk.' the other figure answered.

'Yeah, yeah, I know. But leaving her alive as well?'

'We are not here to attract attention.'

'Hah, I bet you just did not want to kill a pretty woman like that, right?' the first figure teased. His voice was low and raspy.

There was no reaction from the other figure.

A sigh. 'At least Kakuzu is going to be happy with his bounty. That guy was worth over a million ryo.'

The second figure did not answer.

'That woman was impressive, however. She was aware, on some level, of our presence. And she packed quite a punch.'

'Hn.' the second figure reacted.

Another chuckle was heard from the first and between one tree and the next, they were gone.


	4. Leaving

Sakura let out a happy sigh when Konoha's borders came into view. The light from the rising sun gently awoke Konoha from her slumber by the time Sakura reached the outer walls.

While there currently was no war or major conflict going on, there was an underlying tension through the Elemental Nations that told everyone that it would not be long until this fragile standstill would be broken. This, in turn, meant that Sakura did not want to risk being outside the safety of Konoha with half of their team out cold any longer than possible, even while in the Land of Fire.

Especially with the weird way the fight had ended.

One moment she had lain her injured teammates under a tree, on the side of the road, chakra levels still almost full after all that time she had to stay in hiding as back-up.

The next, she turned around to look at- something?- and suddenly sprouted a slight headache and had to stagger back, half of her chakra suddenly gone.

At first she had believed the chakra cost was because of the poison she had to burn out of Kakashi's and Sai's system, as Tayam was apparently also a poison user. But halfway though her journey home, she had started to doubt that realisation - she vaguely remembered thinking the poison was not on the katana but on some other weapon. But Sai was only hit with the katana.

 **'I'm not sure either, Sakura. But the only other alternative could be a genjutsu. And we are still alive, the body is still in the scroll, our teammates are okay, so why would someone cast a genjutsu on us?'**

'I don't know, Inner. That's exactly what scares me.'

There was nothing she could do about it now, however. And it was still a strong possibility it could just be her paranoia.

Her priority now was to get to Konoha.

She traveled for eighteen hours straight, through the night, with the chakra carriers. Even with her chakra control which enabled her to spend as little chakra as possible, and her now – through a lot of practice – above average reserves, she was almost falling over.

Two chakra carriers for her teammates, with Kakashi slung over her shoulder, secured with chakra as well, though that was less intensive.

Well, two chakra carries for the first hour. Naruto had woken up long before the others because of Kyuubi's fast recovery, which meant one carrier less. He didn't have the chakra control or the energy (yet) to help carry Kakashi and Sai, but enough energy to use his mouth, chatting away about whatever he felt like. For him, their teammates were in no danger, just resting, and chakra exhaustion happened to them often enough that he had no fear it would go wrong. She just nodded along, not really listening, and Naruto didn't seem to require her attention that much.

Once, Naruto's chatter would have cheered her up and lighten the journey home. Now, his unending talk just seemed to hurt her ears. Most of it was "Hinata-chan did…" and "Hinata-chan is so…" and more. Another part was telling her about the many adventures he had had in the last few weeks, some with random ninjas, as Tsunade was obviously grooming Naruto to take over after her and wanted him to be known to as many fellow Konoha shinobi as possible. Other times he was with Sai, or Kakashi, or some of the Konoha Eleven… but never with her. While these stories did make Sakura happy for both Hinata and Naturo, as they were obviously deeply in love and oblivious to anything around them, and for Naruto and his growing acknowledgement in the Konoha forces, it also made her feel a sharp jab of pain that may have been jealously or bitterness, or worse, a what-if.

She didn't like that feeling, so she concentrated on the road ahead and ignored her former best friend.

Thus their journey home dragged along, as Sai and Kakashi lay motionless on the carriers, chakra exhaustion taking – for a regular shinobi – at least a day to sleep off.

Sakura herself was just feeling very tired. The chakra carries took little chakra to maintain, but she had maintained them for almost eighteen hours. So far, luckily, she hadn't needed to us her back-up chakra she had stored on her arm, the location she had chosen for the Strength of a Hundred seal.

It was one of the last techniques Tsunade had taught her, together with its matching technique Creation Rebirth. The memory now left a bitter taste in her mouth as the Godaime had since focused on teaching Hinata, and left her former apprentice behind.

Sakura was so sick of people leaving her behind.

'We're home, Sakura-chan!' Naruto's voice cried out in joy.

Home. Right.

Luckily, the guards recognized her and Naruto and let them through. They could probably see how tired she was. Sakura may be strong, but she had travelled eighteen hours in two days and wanted to get to safety as soon as possible. After this mission she just wanted to get it over and done with and flee to the relative safety of her apartment. But, she was a well-trained kunoichi and knew that the mission came first so she would first have to report to Tsunade.

Once they were within Konoha's borders Sakura slowed down and relaxed. Their teammates only needed rest, after all, and now that they were safe there was no reason to hurry. Sai, with his ROOT training, was already showing signs of just being in a deep sleep, not unconscious. Only Kakashi with his chakra-draining Sharingan was still out of it, as he often was after over-using it.

'To the hospital, Naruto!' she called to him and turned left. He followed, greeting people left and right – nowadays, it seemed as if the whole village knew Naruto, a massive turnaround since they graduated years ago - and within a few minutes they arrived at the hospital.

Luckily, the doors to the hospital were wide enough that she could carry the chakra carriers in without problem when Naruto held the doors open.

Emi, one of the nurses Sakura was pretty familiar with, was sitting behind the desk and looked up when she saw them walk in. She noticed the carriers and that Sakura looked tired and rushed up to meet them. 'What do you need, Sakura-senpai?'

Sakura inwardly smiled at the honorific. Because she was one of the best nurses in Konoha hospital, she occasionally taught other nurses a few things and because of that most of the nurses called her senpai. This was the only place where she felt respected most of the time. This was her sanctuary. In medic mode, she had a purpose. She was important.

'Why does she call you senpai, Sakura?' Naruto asked her. He sounded almost unbelieving, even though he was probably just surprised. Bitterness welled up in Sakura and she decided to ignore the question in favour of answering Emi. Naruto didn't know what Sakura did in the hospital every day. How strong she, in her own way, had become.

'I have both Kakashi and Sai with me: they are not injured anymore but they are exhausted. They were poisoned during this mission, but I removed it in the field. Check them over, to be safe. Is their usual room free?' Emi nodded in affirmation, a little admiration in her eyes when she heard about the field-healing, and moved to get two carriers for Kakashi and Sai. Sakura smiled slightly, thankful for the fact that Emi was a bright girl and a quick thinker.

She turned to Naruto momentarily, and held her hand out for the scroll containing Tayam, which Naruto handed to her, but held onto on one end. 'Go with them and let yourself be checked for any injuries, okay? I'm going to Tsunade-sama.' Naruto looked like he was about to protest, still holding the end of the scroll, but Sakura gave him a stern look and turned back to Emi so he let it go. In the end, Naruto was more concerned with his teammates than the mission report.

She moved both Kakashi and Sai to the hospital carriers, dissolved the chakra barriers and motioned for Naruto to follow Emi. He didn't seem content to follow Sakura's orders, but obeyed for now. Thank Kami. Sakura had no energy for another argument about nothing, and she was familiar with the way Naruto gave mission reports.

If he ever wanted to become Hokage, he needed a lot more respect and understanding for the bureaucratic side of the job.

Taking Tayam with her, Sakura exited the hospital and ran to the Hokage tower over the rooftops. She jumped on the balcony of Tsunade's office and knocked on the glass. The Hokage, who had been bend over her desk with a glass of sake in her hand, looked up and narrowed her eyes. When she recognized Sakura she motioned for her to enter.

Sakura made a few hand signs and opened the window. Slipping in, noticing at least two hidden ANBU just outside the office, she closed the window behind her, walking in front of Tsunade's desk.

Suddenly, she felt unsure. Was she supposed to just bring the body here? This was her first mission where she actually had to take care of the body itself: others had always done it before. She hesitantly looked at Tsunade. 'Team 7, reporting in.'

'The mission is completed?' the Hokage asked her. Sakura nodded. 'Next time, Sakura, bring the body to the ANBU headquarters. They'll want to examine it.'

Sakura bowed her head, feeling ashamed. She should've known that.

' **How could you have known that? Nobody ever told you.** ' Inner comforted her. 'Yeah, but it's protocol. I'm sure I could've read it somewhere.'

'Even though Kakashi, being the mission leader, will hand in a handwritten report later I want to hear your side too, since you seem to be the only one left standing. Which, I must say, is an… interesting detail, but not unexpected. You're the medic, after all.' The last part Tsunade murmured to herself.

After a short pause, the blonde woman looked up again. 'So, Sakura, report.' the Hokage ordered.

Sakura felt the urge to frown but kept her face blank and told Tsunade what happened. 'We arrived at the destined location after eighteen hours of travel. We hid and two hours later the target appeared. Naruto distracted him, while Kakashi and Sai attacked him. I stayed hidden as back-up, to attack only when signalled to, which Kakashi did not.' Sakura was too caught up in thinking about how to formulate the next part to notice that the Hokage frowned at this and made a note. Sakura continued. 'After an intense fight they managed to kill the target, but fainted from exhaustion themselves. I healed them and took them back to Konoha. Both Sai and Kakashi had poison in their blood, and though Naruto is practically immune to most poison, I used a lot of my chakra to cure both Sai and Kakashi. They are both clean now, however. Naruto woke up after an hour of travel, and is now in the hospital getting himself checked up and waiting for the other two to wake up.'

'Nothing else happened?' Tsunade asked her, eyes narrowed. She saw the fatigued state her former apprentice was in. It could be that healing the poison would tire her so, but Sakura was a very good medical ninja, second only to herself, and she had a gut feeling something else had happened as well.

Sakura contemplated telling her Hokage about the weird feeling and her headache. But she wasn't sure if Tsunade would take her seriously.

Maybe she would only see that as validation of her earlier concern, that Sakura was not strong enough for this mission.

No. She would not tell.

She did excellent on this mission in any case.

She had executed her support role perfectly, both healing her team and getting them home safely. So even though she had no 'badass moments', there were little other ninja who could have done a field-healing like that. She knew it.

Would her team realize this as well? Would her village realize that it was because of her that they had not lost two of their strongest shinobi today? Would Konoha only want Sakura in the field when she did more than heal? Everyone always underestimated the medic. Sakura had used that and surprised many an opponent. Still, she did far more than people realized. Sakura had lost count how many times she had saved her team just by healing them, even if she wasn't allowed to participate in the fight herself.

'No, Tsunade-sama.'

 **'You're doing the right thing. If you tell them about your suspicion, it will probably be used against you.'**

The Hokage closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to make a decision.

'Okay. Good job, Sakura. You got your team home safely and in one piece – and that is just as important as completing the mission itself. Deliver the body to the general ANBU headquarters – you know where it is, right?'

Sakura nodded, and smiled at her former sensei's compliment, which Tsunade returned with a smile on her own. Being a medic herself, Tsunade was the most likely person to see that she did her job well.

Shinobi and Hokage stared at each other for a moment.

No.

Student and teacher stared at each other for a moment.

Tsunade's eyes looked unusually fond as she look at Sakura, the girl so different and hardened from the young girl who begged her to be taught. If she was honest with herself, the Sannin missed the younger and innocent Sakura that died with Sasuke. That Sakura seemed to smile more, the light of her smile reaching her eyes and not just her mouth. With the tension in the Elemental Nations, co-running the hospital with Shizune, and taking on Hinata as a new apprentice, Tsunade had little time left for other things, no matter how much she would have liked to do them.

Like catching up with her former apprentice, who seemed now more than ever to slowly slip away from her, merely a shell of her former, bubbly self.

What had happened to that girl?

A beat, and Tsunade opened her mouth to ask that very question to the pink haired girl. In this moment, the duo seemed closer than they had been in a while.

But just as she was about to ask, there was a knock on the door and Hinata walked in. 'Sensei, I have the files from the hospital you requested. Oh, hi Sakura!' the purple-haired girl said as she walked into the office, and stood next to Tsunade behind her desk and handed over the files.

Tsunade diverted her attention, and took the files from her apprentice as they exchanged a few sentences about what was in the files.

As the Hokage told her apprentice that Naruto was back in town, the girl smiled and excused herself to go check in with her boyfriend and lover. Tsunade waved her away and turned back to the office itself, still intent on asking Sakura how she really was doing.

But the office was empty.

* * *

The ANBU had two headquarters: One was the for delivering enemies, dead or alive, and communication. That location didn't change and was known to most Konoha shinobi of chunin level and up. Sakura, being a jounin, thus knew where it was.

The other one was the 'real' headquarters, where ANBU themselves reported and were briefed, where the T&I department was located and more, with the ANBU commander in charge. Sakura wasn't really supposed to know this (and where it was located) but being around the Hokage for as much as she was kinda tended to provide information about these sorts of things.

However, turning in a missing-nin like this meant she had to go to the first one, and after a quick stop there to drop off the scroll, she went on home to catch up on some much needed rest, feeling a bit shaken from her conversation with Tsunade.

Damn it, but she missed the time when she and her shishou were still close.

After spending the next ten hours in blissful, uninterrupted sleep, Sakura woke up feeling less rested than she had expected. While her body was feeling well, her mind was still in turmoil, full of traitorous thoughts she would have been horrified to think just a year ago.

Did she still want to be in Konoha? She had seen so much blood and death, and healed most of it, and while there were a lot of good moments in her life and career, and someone's intestines had long stopped bothering her, Sakura was not sure if she wanted to live in the world of shinobi anymore.

Getting up, not in a hurry, she took a long shower and dressed in loose-fitting clothes. Tomorrow, it was time to train with Lee again. She was looking forward to it – she hadn't seen her friend in over a week, and that is a long time when you have little true friends.

Looking at the clock, it was almost time for dinner. Getting back in the early morning really messed with her sleeping rhythm – honestly, if she wasn't used to it because of shinobi life and able to cancel out the negative effects through her knowledge of medical ninjutsu, she was sure she would live with a constant headache as her body kept trying to set a sleeping rhythm and fail.

As she was contemplating what to eat, there was a knock on her door. Frowning, unsure who would visit her at this time of the day, or who would go out of their way to visit her, period, she opened the door.

'Hey Ugly. You're almost late for our after-mission dinner, so I came to get you.' Sai greeted her with a smile that almost looked real.

Then again, all of Sai's smiles looked like that. At least he had woken up.

'After-mission dinner?' Sakura asked him, a bit confused.

'Yeah. We always meet up after a mission to eat. Of course, you never go with us anymore on the high-ranking missions, so I suspected you did not know and came to get you.'

'Oh. Okay, let me get my stuff.' Sakura said, slightly bewildered. 'And thanks, I think?' she told the former ROOT agent. Even though he was as rude as always, he did think to come and get her, which was nice of him.

Getting her purse and bag from her apartment, she stepped out to meet Sai, giving him a once-over. 'You feeling alright?' It seemed he had healed well.

' **That's not a surprise, given our skills.** ' Inner smirked.

'I am in good health.' Sai confirmed. 'Follow me – Naruto is waiting at Ichiraku.' Sakura snorted. All these years, and it was still Naruto's favourite stakeout.

Jumping over the rooftops, they made quick time and slipped in an both sides of Naruto, who was already sitting behind the counter and halfway through his first bowl.

'Too hungry to wait for us?' Sakura teased, waving hello to Teuchi and taking a seat next to Naruto, Sai sliding in on the other side of the blond-haired ramen lover.

'Bwhut Sakwhura-chwan!' Naruto protested, before swallowing his mouthful of ramen. 'I couldn't just sit here, all this heavenly ramen within arm's reach, not knowing if it would take minutes or hours or days for Sai to get here! Oh, and you as well of course!' he added. Sakura sighed and shook her head.

'Two more miso ramen, please.' she asked Teuchi, knowing that was the only kind of ramen Sai liked.

'Actually-' the former Root agent said, raising his hand, 'I would prefer the pork ramen.'

'Oh? I did not know your taste in ramen had evolved.' Sakura remarked with a smile, looking at Sai.

'That is because over the last few years you have spoken to me less and less, because of the fact that we do not take many missions together anymore and because you are in the hospital a lot. Thus, you know me and my personal preferences less well then you did before.' Sai said while accepting his order from Teuchi.

'At least you're just as blunt and nuanced as you were when I first met you.' Sakura said as answer.

She did not expect that answer from Sai, and it actually kind of hurt. While he did not speak in any kind of mean or accusing way, he did speak true, and she did not like that. He had not sought her out outside of missions in any way as well, since the death of Sasuke.

' **Yes, but you did not seek him out as well, Sakura. The fact that your friendship with Sai has lessened is partly on him, yes, but also on you. You could have talked to him. To Naruto, or Ino, about what you felt and were going through – even in the beginning. For Ino, especially in the beginning.** '

'I had you, though.' But Inner gave no answer.

While Naruto was telling Teuchi and Ayame, who had both come to talk to their favourite customer, Sakura dwelled on Inner's words.

She did not feel like she was truly friends with Sai anymore. With Naruto it was more complicated, as she could not imagine Naruto seeing her as anything other than his old friend "Sakura-chan", Naruto had many, many friend. She used to be a special friend to him, someone who was with him almost every day, and now she was… not. Not to mention Ino, who had supported her through Sasuke's death when she returned from her mission, but even their friendship had waned when Ino grew into her boy-crazy period where she jumped from boy to boy and Sakura could not gossip with her let alone keep up with her life when her teammate was dead and her future was forever changed and could she ever trust anyone again and… yeah.

But could she have done more? Could she have gone to Naruto and grieve together – would Hinata have minded? Could she have reconnected with Tsunade?

Absently slurping her ramen, thinking about those times, she remembered the voice of her mother.

Good girls never cry in public. Good girls are strong, and smile, and have good manners. Good girls are sweet, and kind, and do not hurt a fly. Good girls don't cause a fuss.

Good girls don't brag. Good girls are silent.

Shaking of the shiver that ran down her spine whenever she thought of her, now deceased, mother and her lessons on etiquette Sakura emptied her bowl. Her mother came from a rich civilian family, and Sakura had always underestimated how much shinobi life differed from civilian life.

Even after all these years, the person her mother tried to shape her into for the first eight years of her life reared her head now and then. She was still sure that the only reason she was allowed to attend the Ninja Academy in the first place was so that her mother could brag about it.

Ironic, considering her lessons.

Still, she wondered: if her mother had been more supportive, more talkative, how different would her life be?

The voice of the blond next to her, still caught up in his story, crept into her awareness again.

'…and then I got him in the gut with a Rasengan, even though I was so tired after that I had to lie down for a bit, and then Kakashi-sensei surprised him from behind with a Chidori and then we were like' – at which point Naruto made several elaborate hand gestures and nearly knocked Sai out of his chair – 'and then he fell over! And we won! We were so badass.' Naruto finished his tale proudly, beaming to Ayame and Teuchi.

'And I'm sure Sakura-chan then healed you up real good because you had all charged in recklessly again.' Ayame said with amusement and fondness in her voice, winking to Sakura. Sakura smiled back.

'Well, yeah, Sakura healed us I guess. That's true. But still, you should have seen it Ayame-neechan, we totally owned him!' Naruto continued his story, still intent on getting more of a reaction from the ramen restaurant owners.

'You did well, Naturo.' old man Teuchi said with a fond smile while he ruffled Naruto's hair. 'As did Sai and your sensei. And, this time, Sakura as well, of course! How else would you have gotten home in one piece!'

'Hey!' Naruto protested loudly at the implication that he was not the strongest and most awesome ninja to walk the earth ever. Around the ramen owners, whom Naruto had known since childhood, he fell easier into his more childish moments. 'I could have totally made it home without any help! I could have beaten that guy on my own, I bet! I'm that awesome!' the blonde answered with a big grin.

'Please.' Sai snorted with a smirk. 'If I hadn't been there to block that second attack, you would have been out cold in the first ten seconds, dickless.'

'Bastard! That is so not true!' Naruto shouted back, and the two high-ranking shinobi started squabbling like children.

'Don't worry, Sakura-chan.' Sakura turned her head and looked into Ayame's eyes. 'For all their bragging, we all know that you are the one who makes sure they'll get home safe.' the girl said with a smile.

Did they? Did they really know?

'Thank you.' Sakura answered with a small smile, thankful that the ramen girl wasn't a shinobi who could notice her change in body language, no matter how hard she was trying to hide it right now. However, Ayame's sentiment was genuine.

It seemed like the Konoha civilians, at least, valued healing and support just as much as the violence and killing.

'I'm afraid I'm turning in early, though.' Sakura told the girl while putting some ryo on the counter. 'Tomorrow morning I'm training with Lee, and you know how early he rises.'

Ayame giggled. 'Indeed – good luck, you'll need it! I didn't know you two trained together. You're right to do so, though. Lee is a good guy.'

Sakura nodded and rose from her seat. 'Yes. Yes he is.' She then turned to Naruto and Sai. 'I'm turning in early, guys, but thanks for the dinner.'

Good girls don't make a fuss. Good girls are silent.

If they noticed her curiously blank voice, they did not comment on it. She was glad Kakashi was not with them right now.

'Ahwwww, Sakura-chan! But at least give me a hug!' Naruto said with a pout while Sai waved at her, still smirking and replying to Naruto his insult with his own.

'Your next bowl, Naruto!' Teuchi called as Sai finished his reply. Naruto, distracted, turned around.

Sakura left.

 **'It'll be alright.** ' Inner tried to comfort her as they both analysed the conversation that just took place.

Sakura wanted to believe her.

She really wanted to.

* * *

Kick. Step back. Evade from the right. Right arm backwards, then flip to the side. Chakra: tap foot. Jump back from the chaos created.

Use flying debris that is floating in the air to change course mid-air and evade. Counter with high kick. Jump to the left.

Ache back to evade kick. Fail. Roll with the force of the kick, stand straight, turn, block punch. Punch back, miss, punch again, hit. Jump back to evade counter-attack.

At ease.

'That was a youthful spar, my cherry blossom!' Even from the other side of the field, Lee's teeth glinted in the sunlight and Sakura didn't need to look to know that he had raised both his thumbs.

Catching her breath for a few seconds, she started walking over the now ruined training field towards Lee. 'I agree. One day I will beat you!' she shouted towards him.

Lee grinned back while putting his weights back on. He met her near the edge of the field and gave thump on her back. Sakura smiled back, genuinely feeling better.

'Did your mission go well? I heard this one was together with your youthful team 7?' her spandex-clad friend inquired. At this, Sakura's smile turned into a grimace.

'Well, I got my team home in one piece, they defeated the rogue ninja, and they even invited me out for an after-mission dinner, where they retold the whole fight again. So, yeah.'

Taking note of both her tone and body language, Lee sat down under the nearest still standing tree and pat the ground next to him. Sakura joined him, looking out over the ruined training field, the Hokage monument in the background.

'What is bothering you, my friend?' Lee asked her, eyes calm and no exclamations of youth in sight. The taijutsu specialist had matured over the last years as well, not only getting stronger, but also getting better at reading social cues.

Sakura sighed. The honest curiosity and concern without judgement coming from Lee made her want to open up.

But…

Good girls don't make a fuss.

Good girls are silent.

Fuck being a good girl.

'Lee.' the pink haired girl started, checking their environment quickly and seeing no others in sight. 'Can I talk to you about something… sensitive? I've been having a though week and I'm feeling conflicted about some things… But I'd like to keep them private.

Can I trust you?'

Lee tilted his head. 'What kind of sensitive information are we talking about?'

Sakura smiled slightly. 'Nothing incriminating, I promise. I've just been thinking about the shinobi world in general, my duties at the hospital, and what it means to be a shinobi…' she trailed off.

Lee looked at her for another moment and nodded. 'You can trust me, Sakura. I know our world is not always the easiest to live in, but it is always better if you have someone to confide in.' At this, he briefly flashed her a blinding smile.

Sakura let out a soft chuckle and turned her gaze to the training field again.

'Since Sasuke's death, everything changed.

When I was young, I used to think he hung the stars. And when he betrayed us, I thought he was misguided, and that my love could set him straight. Even when he killed Orochimaru and did not return, I did not lose hope. When he almost killed Naruto, I doubted, but did not lose hope. Only in our final fight, when he almost killed both me and Naruto before Naruto drove him off, my hope for him died just like I almost did.

He was, during the academy and after, the embodiment of what a perfect shinobi should be. How could he have gone so wrong? Did that say something about him, or about the world of shinobi itself?

I used to think it was just how he was traumatized in his youth and then again by Orochimaru, that Sasuke had just become too twisted and dark to save. And while I still believe in that, I can't believe anymore that it was just that. All these years, all this violence and death… Sasuke was a killing machine without morals or mercy, in the end. His goal was to destroy the world, as far as we know.

But if Sasuke had stayed loyal to Konoha with the exact same personality, he would have been hailed as the perfect shinobi. A killing machine without morals or mercy, but doing exactly what was commanded to do for the good of the village. Is our world really build like that?'

Sakura sighed, long and deep, and her gaze fell to her hands.

'Being a ninja would mean power, I thought when I started on this path. Power to do what's right, what's good, to help and protect.

But that's not what we do. We do not help and protect; we only help and protect those that Konoha deems worthy to. When I'm on a mission to reach Sand in four days, if I meet a sick civilian on the way, I can't help them if I want to reach Sand on time. I'm not allowed to help and cure and protect every sick or helpless civilian, person, I see when I am out there. And while I understand that from an economic perspective… it just doesn't feel right anymore.

Team 7 is lost to me, not through death or violence, but because they fit so well into this world of shinobi. And I… I am not so sure I fit here anymore… I just want to help people! Make this world a better place!'

Her fists clenched.

'I specialized in the healing arts, and it soothed my wounds and worry. But every shinobi I heal, goes out to kill again, and eventually ends up back at the hospital or worse. My friends don't care about what poisons I can identify or heal, or what limbs I can grow back, they only care about who can kill something the hardest or best.

Konoha is built on blood. We hide it well, but we're no better than any other shinobi village in the end. It's all about killing and violence, not about protecting our people.

They don't care about who you protected, they only care about your bodycount!'

At this angry exclamation, she let her hands fall into her head. Her breathing, which has sped up, evened out.

Her eyes widened behind her hands. She'd let her mouth run away from her. That was far more than she'd intended to say.

The pink-haired girl raised her head and looked at her friend. She was expecting a look of shock or maybe even anger.

Instead, Lee was looking away as well. His eyes held sadness she had never seen in his gaze before.

'I agree.' his soft voice spoke.

Her breath halted. 'What?' she answered, a whisper.

'Our world speaks in violence, and counts shinobi, not people. And not just friendly and youthful spars: no. Lies, deceit, betrayal, they are all common to us shinobi.'

Lee looked at her.

'I wish there would be another way for me to live. But I know of no other.

What would I do, alone outside these walls? Work my days as a lone bodyguard without ninjutsu, or a construction worker who has no influence over the world's fate? That is, assuming Konoha would let me go. I am, after all, a very effective jõunin.'

A smile played on his lips, but it was not a happy one.

'For all the faults of the shinobi world, Konoha at least tries to be good. Sometimes. And my friends and loved ones are here, and they, at least, make it worth fighting for.

But if I had the chance to start over… I'm not sure if I would have chosen the same path.'

The clearing is silent.

'Have you ever talked about this with somone?' Sakura asked her friend in a soft voice.

'Yes. I know Gai-sensei feels the same, but while he listened to me as I explained my inner conflict, he would not answer, and I did not press for one.'

Sakura closed her eyes.

'Kakashi and I were never close, and Kurenai-senpai I do not see a lot outside of training. I'm curious if after a while, people just keep fighting and being a shinobi because they know of no other way to live.'

'If all shinobi could choose together the stop the violence and war, I believe they would. The problem is no one trusts each other.' Lee said.

'I want to end this world of pain. Konoha kills a Cloud ninja on a mission, so Cloud takes revenge, then Konoha takes revenge again... I want to stop that. Stop this cycle of constant revenge and hate.' Sakura answered.

'I don't want to live this life anymore.'

'If you ever find a way to stop the cycle,' Lee said, 'you can count on me.'

* * *

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Her chakra-less fists hit the thick wood of the tree Sakura was facing.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Splinters flew left and right of her face, but she did not blink.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

After her morning training and discussion with Lee, she had decided to walk around Konoha for a bit, distract herself, think about the discussion she just had. She always had a minimum of a day off after a mission, even when she came back healthy, to replenish her chakra. Making her way downtown, walking fast on her way to the training grounds she had come across Ichiraku. She'd only threw a glance inside for a few moments before walking faster.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Kakashi, Naruto, Sai and Hinata were eating an early lunch. Apparently, Kakashi had been released from the hospital. The way they sat suggested familiarity and they looked like a true team.

It only served to re-ignite the anger she had felt yesterday on how carelessly Naruto, and even Sai, had discarded her contributions to the mission the day before.

 **'You did not kill anyone. It doesn't matter that you healed and guarded them - you didn't actually "do" anything on that mission as far as they're concerned.'** Inner mumbled.

Sakura had needed to punch something. She had gone to the training grounds again and now, an hour later, had almost punched her frustration out.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Blow after blow landed on the thick, old, tree as Sakura punched her frustration into the innocent object. She gritted her teeth and gave it one last blow, putting her chakra into this one. It split into two pieces that both flew several meters backward as Sakura let out a breath and turned around, not even looking behind her to see the pieces hit the ground. Healing the bruises on her knuckles happened automatically by now.

Maybe she was just overreacting. Maybe this whole incident would fade, just another mission to never be spoken about. The hurtful words and actions of her comrades would be forgotten and she would feel at home in Konoha again.

Maybe.

Maybe it would all go back as it was before the Sasuke's death.

Or Sakura would fade into the background once more.

Good girls don't make a fuss.

But she didn't want that. Not again. She didn't want to be the good girl her parents had always wanted her to be. She didn't want to spend another mission not being look at by her former team, her supportive work not being acknowledged, and then having to be silent about how they treated her.

She was worth just as much as they were.

Sakura decided to go home and shower, dismissing her thoughts about the past two days. However, just as she stood up and wiped the dust of her knees, she felt a familiar chakra signature appear next to her. She straightened and looked at him.

'Hello, Neji.' Sakura addressed her fellow shinobi politely.

Neji just nodded. 'Have you finished your training?' he asked her.

Sakura bit her lip at his words. She was pretty good at reading others, especially the shinobi she had known for many years. Not only was Neji's tone disrespectful, his body language told her exactly what he thought about her. It was nothing good, rest to be assured. She unclenched her fists and forced a friendly smile on her face. After all these years pretending, it didn't take much effort.

'Yes. I have. You're free to use the training field now.'

She nodded once, smiled at him again and started to walk away. Neji wasn't exactly known for his friendliness and she wasn't sure she could take much more nasty comments thrown her way. But, of course, Neji had never been able to just shut up.

'Sakura. A word of advice. Try developing some other skill than simply punching your enemies to death. Everyone knows that technique by now and most will counter it easily. It would be a wise decision to focus on your other… strengths.'

As she spoke, her voice was clipped. 'Of course, Neji. I'll leave you to your training.'

Another comrade did not look past the outer shell of her. Though she did not know Neji very well, thus it was unreasonable he knew of the development and growth she had gone through the last few years. On the other hand, being Lee's teammate, he did know that she had been training with Lee – which was taijutsu as well.

But was her well-earned reputation as one of the three best medics in Konoha worth nothing to him then? Had she herself not healed or diagnosed him countless of times? Did he not consider her medic skills another 'strength'?

 **'Neji is a Hyuuga. A shinobi clan. Did you expect him to have more depth than seeing violence, force and power as 'strengths' or important attributes? To him, as to most shinobi, it does not matter how good you are in creating antidotes. How fast you can bring shinobi back from the brink of death. How easily you can reattach another arm.**

 **They are shinobi. This is the world we live in.'**

'But it's not the only world. There is also Ayame, with her kind words, and the nurses at the hospital like Emi who look up to me and…'

 **'They are not shinobi. They live in the world of shinobi, but they are not shinobi themselves. They are people who live in daylight, not in shadows, and who can smile and walk around town without worrying about their ability to kill others.'**

Sakura was silent for a while.

'I would like a life like that.'

Inner made a comforting noise and fell silent, deep in thought herself.

Walking towards Konoha herself again, leaving the Hyuuga behind, Sakura knew she had to do something to cheer herself up. These last few days bore several realizations and experiences that weighed heavily on her mind.

Shopping did seem like a good idea. She hadn't done something so simple as buying clothes for pleasure for a while – maybe she could even invite Ino? She hadn't seen the other girl for a while.

Remembering her earlier realization – who was at fault for their waning friendship, Ino or herself? Was someone at fault at all? – Sakura set course for Ino's apartment.

Walking up the stairs she stopped in front of the blonde girl her apartment and knocked three times.

Nothing. It seemed like the girl was not home. Too bad.

Walking out of the apartment building, Sakura took off to Konoha's shopping district. She immediately went to her favourite shop, Shuzinu. She used to come here about every other week with the not only Ino, but TenTen and Hinata as well.

Come to think of it, when was the last time their group had met up?

Deciding to not think of it now, Sakura entered Shuzinu, found a few dresses and skirts that seemed nice and wandered off to the fitting rooms. Buying clothes had always made her feel better and with the S-ranked mission pay she had received yesterday she could also afford them.

As she was trying on the third dress, a cute red knee-length dress with black accents, three voices she knew all too well entered the fitting rooms.

'Don't forget this dress, Ino!' TenTen shouted through the shopping mall. Her friend's voice had always been loud and there was no mistaking it for someone else's. After TenTen's shout followed a soft, girly giggle. Hinata. Back from lunch, or so it seemed.

Sakura felt disappointment curl up in her belly. They went shopping together and hadn't even asked her to come?

She took a breath. No need to jump to conclusions. She had been gone on a mission and maybe the girls didn't know she was back yet. Maybe this was the chance she was waiting for, to rekindle their waning friendship.

She was about to step out of her fitting room and greet them, when-

'Are you still on for the sleepover tomorrow?' Ino asked the other two girls.

'Of course! It's been too long since we did that!' TenTen answered cheerily.

'It's been three weeks.' Hinata said, a smile in her voice. 'So? That's too long!' Ino said, laughing.

Now Sakura did feel hurt. They had a sleepover without her? Had their friendship really faded so badly?

 **'You were very busy at the hospital, remember? That one ANBU-squad came in three weeks ago. I'm sure they just didn't want to bother you.'** Inner assured her.

It didn't sound convincing.

Sakura was getting sick of all the 'maybe's'.

'S-s-shouldn't we invite Sakura? She arrived back from her mission yesterday and it has been so long since spoke to her…' Hinata said softly.

'Forehead was on a mission? Well, that is certainly surprising. I thought she had chained herself to the hospital forever.' Ino said.

'Oh, cut it with the hospital talk. I swear, every time I see her I get another rant about the hospital this and the hospital that. I mean, yeah, I can pretend to listen nicely the first time, but by the third time I was so bored I just tuned her out! Really, who cares if whatever poison they created this time kills 0.0001 seconds faster than the other one. In battle, you don't even notice the difference anymore. And then she started telling me about how she created the antidote! As if I would use the antidote on my enemies!' TenTen finished her spiel with an annoyed sigh.

'Well, it's good to have one on hand when you miss and hit your ally by accident.' Ino teased.

The sound of something sharp hitting the wall could be heard. 'Please. I never miss.'

'Ah well. I get what you mean though, TenTen. The last few times I tried to tell Sakura about my latest boyfriend, she nodded and smiled but I could see she wasn't really listening. So whatever. If she wants to spend all her time in the hospital, let her.' Ino replied to TenTen, her voice becoming softer at the end.

'Well, Ino, with the amount of boyfriends you go through in a month, I don't blame her for not paying attention when he will not last the week anyway.' TenTen said, laughing.

'Hey!' Ino protested. 'But you at least remember their names – ah well, it's the principle of the thing!'

'So, will we invite her or not?' Hinata's soft voice piped up.

'We'll invite her when we see her.' Ino said dismissively. 'Now, this dress, hot or not?'

Ino knew it was very unlikely they would see Sakura within the next two days.

Sakura knew that the chance did not exist at all.

 **'We're leaving.'**

Sakura didn't answer.

* * *

It was now or never. She had to go, before she chickened out and spend more time feeling miserable. This was the right thing to do. Konoha did not deserve her anymore, and it would not miss her. Her friends would not miss her, and she would do more for the world outside these walls, healing and protecting innocents, than inside.

Sakura entered her apartment. Working all these years at the hospital with almost no voluntary leave or holidays, she had quite some days off to spend. Almost two months, at least. She had taken a month leave and she wasn't scheduled for a hospital shift for another week after that. She had to report back, of course, after her month-long holiday. That meant she had four weeks, and probably a few more days given the attention or lack thereof given to her, to disappear without being followed. That was more than enough time to disappear without a trace.

She would become a missing-nin.

Those words made her pause, but her gut feeling (and Inner) screamed that she was doing the right thing. Sakura knew the first few weeks were going to be hard and that there would be a lot of moments where she was going to doubt herself and her decision. It would be tough out there without a village, without a safe place. At least, until she found a new safe place.

If she found one.

But she also knew she would do far more good outside the village walls. She could heal those who had fallen sick, protect those who were attacked, and heal people who would not go out to bring more pain as soon as they had a clean bill of health.

She would make this world better.

The rest of the day, after coming back from Shuzinu, she had collected her money, eaten, and stopped by the hospital to take a holiday. It was six o'clock by now. She'd gotten her clothes, her money, some food, all the soldier pills she had.

After requesting leave at the hospital, she'd nicked a few poisons and their cures from the lab, plus other equipment she felt she would. Kami knew she was going to need those, and Konoha had plenty of them. Most of these, she helped make or synthesize herself.

The stealing didn't even feel wrong. Konoha would use it to kill. She was going to use it to heal.

She sealed everything in scrolls. Her shinobi gear, her katana, her shuriken and kunai. Her poisoned senbons, her medic pack and scrolls with more medical equipment and the jutsu scrolls she was studying. She'd showered, changed into casual civilian gear and hidden her weapons.

Time to go.

Sakura paused with one foot out of the door and one foot in her apartment. Last chance to turn back. She wasn't just leaving behind the village, but also Lee and Gai and Kurenai. People who cared about her.

Her friends passed her mind's eye for a second. The good and the bad – the girl's nights out and the training sessions. But, more recently: the silence and the gossip. The 'hellos' when passing each other in the hallway. But nothing more.

Looking back at her time in Konoha after Sasuke's death, she felt grim. There had been some good memories, bright spots in areas of grey's, but the good did not outweigh or make up for the bad.

With renewed determination, Sakura closed the door behind her.

At nine o'clock in the evening she passed the guards, who waved at her absently. She smiled back.

As of today, the old Sakura Haruno didn't exist anymore. She would no longer be led by her emotions. She would no longer needlessly kill at Konoha's command.

The decision did not bring her paint. She felt no grief, nor regret. She felt nothing at all.

She would be a new person.

And she would be one of the greatest.


	5. Realizing

For a long time, all Sakura could see were trees, trees and more trees. She ran for twelve hours straight with only short breaks through the night at top speed and finally, feeling tired from all the running combined with her nerves, stopped at a teahouse, too energized to sleep. With the speed she had travelled at, she had almost reached the border with Grass already.

The little teahouse had been open for no more than an hour. It was early in the morning and the little shop wasn't busy. Sakura felt she deserved a little break.

It was still the land of Fire, after all. A safe place.

She hadn't done anything wrong, after all. Yet. She should calm down.

She ran her hand through her hair, which was now falling freely around her face as Sakura had decided to take her hitai-ate off.

A part of her knew that if she was going to live as a missing-nin, money would be hard to come by. She should be very careful with what and how she spend her money.

On the other hand, she was craving some nice dango and after all the emotional turmoil she had been through Sakura felt like she deserved this small pleasure.

She reminded herself again that this was the right decision and that they wouldn't even notice that she was gone for another week or two. This was the best solution if she ever wanted to be happy again. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. Being hunted for something a path she could still turn back from (wouldn't turn back from).

Telling herself to stop being so paranoid, Sakura entered the teahouse. It was a small one, which was not surprising since they were almost on the border between Fire and Grass, close to Rain.

Well, she hoped they were somewhere around there. The pink-haired girl had decided she wanted to go to the Land of Grass or maybe Waterfall, the smaller countries between Earth and Fire who had little military force to speak of. This meant they had few medics too, so Sakura could be of great help there.

As she closed the door of the teashop behind her, she breathed in the smell of fresh dango and her stomach growled softly. The shop was small, with a bar and a few tables. There would fit no more than twenty people in here, but Sakura knew it was probably rarely that busy. There were only a few other customers. An old man sat at the bar, and a couple occupied a table to her left. Another younger man sat in the corner, sipping his tea.

Sakura smiled and sat at the bar. The old woman behind the counter rushed to greet her.

'Hello, young lady, what would you like to order?' the woman asked with a friendly smile.

She ordered some tea and dango. The woman nodded. Within a few minutes the woman brought her her food and Sakura thanked her.

She slowly ate her food, trying to relish the fact that she had all the time in the world. She hadn't slashed her headband yet. She had taken it off and hidden it, but when she looked at it she couldn't bring herself to slash it. This was partly because she didn't want people to be afraid of her and besides, maybe it would be useful one day. To be honest, maybe it was a better idea to keep wearing no headband at all. Travelling around the world, healing people… And maybe, maybe find a new home one day.

' **That's a nice idea. You can be like, a local wonder woman! If you find a nice village and defend it from attackers and sickness you can be hailed as a hero!'** her Inner told her cheerily. Well, at least one of them was completely at peace with her decision.

To be honest, Sakura liked the sound of that. Find something to live for, something to defend, somewhere to belong.

A new home.

Sakura wiped her mouth and rose from her seat. Time to move on. She looked around for the woman, still needing to pay her and saw her standing with the younger man in the corner, bringing him a new cup of tea.

Suddenly, three ninja came crashing through the door of the small shop, completely unhinging it. They were pretty young. Sakura had seen their faces more than once, but couldn't recall their names. The three Konoha ninja had their weapons drawn and aimed at the young man in the corner, who had risen into a fighting position as well.

Sakura went still for a moment, debating on what to do. She didn't think the Konoha ninja had seen her yet. Then again, what if they did? She was on holiday and still in Konoha. She'd done nothing wrong, so far as they knew.

'Isuma Orotabi, lay down your weapons and surrender. You have been charged with treachery against Suna. You can come along peacefully or by force.' one of the three Konoha nin said with an air of authority.

Ah. A missing nin. Sakura wouldn't interfere. While she could, right now, sympathize with the former Sand-nin (the thought made her feel so weird), this was not her problem.

The old woman currently standing between the four ninja, looking white as a sheet, was.

An explosion. The nuke nin had thrown an explosion tag at the wall and now there was a gaping hole in the left wall of the teahouse. He disappeared through the wall, the three Konoha ninja hot on his tail.

As the smoke cleared, Sakura assessed the damage. A few chairs and tables were thrown on their sides, but the other customers hadn't been harmed.

The old woman, however, was lying on her side, thrown back from the force of the explosion. She was bleeding from her left arm. Sakura rushed to her and sat next to her.

The woman was gasping for breath. 'Please, calm down, ma'am. I am a medical ninja from… I am a medical ninja and I will heal you.' Sakura told her in a soothing voice, catching herself before she mentioned Konoha. That was a habit she must start to break out of.

The old woman looked her in the eyes, still a bit afraid, but nodded. Sakura let her hands glow green.

A broken arm and a few bruised ribs. Sakura exhaled, happy the woman wasn't seriously hurt, and healed her. Less than half a minute later, she was done.

"Do you feel any pain? Can you move your arm again?' Sakura asked the woman as she rose and helped the woman stand.

The woman shook her left arm a bit and smiled at her. 'It feels completely healed! Thank you, shinobi-san – I can't tell you how grateful I am.'

Sakura just smiled at the old woman. 'No problem. It's my job, and you shouldn't have been hurt anyway. I'm sorry for the damage they caused.'

'Don't apologize, dear, it wasn't your fault. You already helped out a lot.' Sakura smiled again, feeling happy at being able to help the woman. 'Wait…' the woman said. 'Your hair… Would you happen to be Hokage-sama's apprentice?'

Internally, Sakura cringed. Outwardly, she simply smiled and nodded. 'You are right, madam.' The woman quickly rose to her feet and gave her a small bow. 'It is an honour to be healed by you, shinobi-san.'

Sakura waved it off quickly. 'No problem, ma'am, I am here to help whenever and however I can.' She smiled once more and quickly turned to check on the other customers. They were all okay. The old man was a bit shaken, but that was it.

 **'We are an idiot.'**

'Yes. Which colour shall we dye our hair?'

Of course people were going to recognize her by her distinctive pink hair.

 **'We are so not fully prepared for this.'**

'We have spend all our time until now just making the decision to leave. We have a few weeks before we really become a… missing-nin. Don't worry. We have time to make a plan.'

 **'I hope we do.'**

Shaking herself from her inner dialogue, Sakura hauled the fallen tables up and looked at the hole in the wall. A pity it was destroyed, but the woman could probably get the money to repair it from Konoha.

A few tables over, she could hear the old woman talking to the young couple in soft voices.

'We're okay. Thank you for asking.' The man with a baby in his arms says. 'But what about your establishment? The damage isn't that bad, but it needs to be repaired. Can you get the money to repair your wall from Konoha?'

The old woman replied in even softer tones. 'Ah, if only Konoha was that fair, my dear. Not only would it take far too long for all the paperwork to go through – I can't spend two weeks with a hole in the wall of my establishment – to actually request the money, I probably won't get it anyway.' The old woman shot a quick look at Sakura, and she pretended to inspect the wall. 'Konohagakure is a bit greedy, I must admit, especially for the little shops in the outskirts like us.

No, it's quicker if I just let my son repair it. He's done it before. Excuse me, dear, I'm going to check the kitchen. Thank you for your concern, and apologies for the hassle.' Turning around and nodding to Sakura, the woman disappeared in the back of the shop.

Sakura frowned. Another black spot in her (former?) village's supposedly white sheet.

Sakura looked around again. Seeing everything and everyone was relatively fine, the young woman reached into her wallet to pay the old woman who'd returned from the kitchen. It was time for her to be on her way again.

Not very surprisingly, the old woman refused her money and Sakura, having experienced this very often and knowing resistance was futile, bowed to her once again and exited the teashop. She mulled over using an earth jutsu to repair the wall, but the shop was wooden, and it sounded like the old woman had her affairs in order, so she left.

' **Sakura.** ' her Inner spoke up as she closed the door behind her.

'Yeah?'

 **'We need to plan. Konoha will not let us or our talent go easily. We don't want to run around the Elemental Countries being chased by half the shinobi constantly.'**

'You're right, of course, Inner. Let's find a place to settle and think.'

After what happened in the little tea shop, she felt her tiredness from running through the night catch up with her. The closest medium-sized rural village with an inn was called Kiru, and running through the tree tops it took her only half an hour to get there. She spend the last few minutes walking towards Kiru on foot, enjoying the time for herself and nodding at the farmers plowing the land when they caught her eye.

Kiru was a typical Fire village, a large broad sand road lined with wooden houses. In the middle she could see the shape of an inn, which probably included a bar, and a broader part of the road which was the town square. There were a few people walking through the village from the farms or just passing through, simple village people. While she was not wearing any shinobi symbol right now, she was not concealing her chakra overly much, or her appearance. She obviously was more than a simple village girl, and while the people she passed by on the road did not avoid her, they made sure to make space for her.

It would take practice to truly pass of as a simple civilian. Sakura had done little undercover missions, and while she was an adapt liar to her fellow shinobi, concealing her shinobi-ness to both shinobi and civilians was not her area of expertise.

Once more, she wondered how exactly she would manage a life as a missing-nin.

 **'Let's get ourselves a room, shall we?'** Inner asked.

Sakura nodded to herself and entered the inn when she reached the town square. Walking towards the bar, she waited a few moments until a women came through the kitchen doors to help her.

'Good morning,' the woman said while giving her a once-over, '…shinobi-san. How may I help you?'

Sakura internally sighed and once more confirmed with herself that going undercover as a shinobi was much more complex than simply taking her headband off. Especially for a woman like herself – which civilian woman would have muscles like her?

'Good morning. I would like a room for the night, please.'

The woman smiled uncertainly. 'Ah, yes… May I ask which village you represent, shinobi-san?' she asked while dropping into a small bow.

Sakura sighed while getting her headband out of her bag, glad that she had decided to keep the symbol whole. 'Konoha, as you can see.' she answered politely.

'Ah, of course!' the inn owner answered, giving her a bright smile. 'This will of course make you eligible for a discount, shinobi-san. Let me get you your key…'

As Sakura sat down on the bed of her room, she made a quick sweep of the room while putting some of her stuff away. Most of her possessions were still sealed in scrolls on her person, but not all.

She had never realized quite how much she was used to being recognized and treated as a shinobi of Konoha while outside the village's walls. Partly because she did not go outside overly much or went undercover, but also because she, like most shinobi she supposed, took it for granted. But it was logical, after all, for civilians to be wary of unknown shinobi. As a missing-nin, how would she be treated?

Some civilians may not care who would heal them or rent the room for the night. Others, however, would, especially inside one of the large elemental countries. Some would feel obligated to report any sightings of a missing-nin to their own Hidden Village, which they relied upon for protection.

And those reports could make her easily traceable. She would need to hide herself as a civilian constantly, to avoid recognition and report to Konoha – or the village of the county she was in. And if someone recognized her – would she have to kill them to secure her own anonymity?

Could she?

 **'We have the time to think this over, Sakura. Let's start with the big problems first.**

 **And I was wondering… Remember what happened on the way to our mission with team 7?'**

Sakura nodded.

 **'Do you think we could talk like that again? I would prefer to… see you while we talk this over… And I remember what it feels like. Maybe if we both try, we could reach that state again.'**

'Let's do this.'

Sitting down cross-legged on her bed, Sakura closed her eyes and evened her breath. Meditating was something she had done quite a lot to increase her chakra capacity, her chakra sensing, and to fill her Strength of a Hundred seal, so she slipped into a meditative state with ease.

Doing this gave her a short but clear flashback to the many times Tsunade-shishou and her had sat on the training fields after a training session, which her sensei always said were the best moments to meditate. She was so young and innocent back then, still believing Sasuke would be brought back to Konoha, still believing in the good of the village.

Her heart ached slightly at the memory, but the feeling soon went away.

It had been years since Tsunade had taken the time to spar or meditate with her.

She was not young and innocent anymore. She was not weak anymore.

Her Strength of a Hundred seal had not been used in a long time.

Shaking the nostalgia from her mind (what use did it have but to remind her of times and innocence lost?) she focused on her breathing and let her chakra seep into the room, softly touching, exploring.

And then she turned her focus not outward, as with her chakra sensitivity training, or to her chakra itself, as with her capacity training, but towards her mind.

To be precise: She turned her focus to the place in her mind where Inner's voice was always present.

 **'I can feel you. Barley, but you are there. Yes, you're getting closer… No, not there…'**

When Inner spoke, her voice was like a thread for her chakra to cling to and to follow.

'Keep talking, Inner, it helps.'

 **'Okay! I would so like for this to work, you know, because it becomes lonely sometimes in here, even though I can follow your life, I'm still always alone in this place.'**

Her chakra slithered like a snake towards the threads of Inner's voice, upward even though no up and down existed, getting closer to… something?

 **'It would be nice if you could visit whenever we would like. Maybe you could even make a clone with me in it, or we could switch places, or- Wait, I feel you, or I feel something at least, I'll try to grab your chakra with mine – wait, do I even have chakra, I'll just use my hands, wait I see something-'**

Throughout Inner's rambling, the thread she had been grasping became stronger, and her chakra coiled around it and grabbed tight and then something pulled-

 **'Come! Here!'** Inner shouted-

A not-quite familiar sensation. She was in her rented inn room, sitting cross-legged on her bed.

She was standing in a familiar (painful) clearing, hands grasped in those of another.

Green eyes, just a shade lighter and colder than her own. Pink hair, a shade darker. Scarred features, but still a reflection of her own.

'Inner.'


	6. Thinking

Becoming a missing nin is easy, right? You just hide really well, then no one can find you, so you're missing, which makes you a missing-nin! Tada!

* * *

The clearing was silent for a moment as the two reflections faced each other. Both Inner and Sakura just stared, taking the other in, cataloguing both their differences and their similarities.

Inner's eyes were green as well, but more of a mint shade than her own vibrant green. They twinkled, almost as if there was light behind them. Her body was more muscular; Sakura herself was strong, but Inner's muscles were clearly defined in both her arms and legs, and were thicker as well. Her hair was darker, not candy pink but more like rosewood, closer to dark red than pink. While Sakura's hair hung loose around her face, Inner's was braided tightly against her skin. The look on Inner's face was different as well, harsher, less kind, but not so much that she looked mean. There were no scars on her face, but the skin looked more rough, and somehow this person was both the same and completely different from Sakura herself.

Then Sakura smiled and Inner stepped forward, grasping her other half in a hug. Sakura returned it with just as much emotion as they held each other firmly.

Two teardrops fell on her shoulder, and Sakura was not afraid to admit that her own eyes were getting wet as well.

Nearly a minute later, Inner took a deep breath and stepped back.

'It's so, so good to see you, Sakura.'

The other girl smiled.

'I've always been so lonely in here,' Inner said softly, 'even though I have always been with you, seeing through your eyes and other senses – it's not the same. Not the same as you _being_ here.'

Sakura kept her breath steady, and let Inner talk.

'I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but to be honest, so do I. I don't know what I am, exactly, or how I came to be,' Inner said while she started pacing, 'but I have memories – _our_ memories – from a very young age. In the beginning, I knew I thought I _was_ you, maybe I even was, but after a while I started to notice that my thoughts or opinions were not the same as your own. And even later, I knew that if I thought loud enough, you could even hear it.'

Inner shot Sakura a quick smile, remembering their first conversation. They were young. It was about a flower the same colour of her hair. Their hair.

Sakura loved it, and wanted to show it to Ino. Inner hated it, and wanted to crush it in her fist.

'In the beginning, the space that I existed in' she said while gesturing around her at the crater, 'was our childhood home. Then, it became the academy, and it stayed that way for a while, even when we started as team 7. It briefly became training ground 7, around the chunin exams, but afterwards quickly shifted to the hospital. It stayed that way until…'

With another gesture to the crater it was clear Inner meant the final confrontation with Sasuke.

'Normally, I experience two things at the same time: your experiences, and me sitting in this crater.'

Inner paused for a moment.

'What are you experiencing now, Sakura?'

'The same. I feel like I'm in two places at the same time. I can hear you, see you, smell the trees around us, but at the same time I'm in my hotel room, smelling the dusty sheets and see the sun through the window. It's… very werid.

Mostly, though, I'm here with you. Even though this is not a nice place to be in.'

'This place is horrible.' Inner agreed. 'There is nothing to do except punching trees, which always restore themselves after a while. It's not as bad as it could be, because after Sasuke's death I concentrated a lot more on you and your life, which made ignoring this place easy.

Still, I could do with some re-decoration.' she said with a wry smile.

'I'm sorry.'

Inner looked surprised by her counterpart's words.

'You didn't know. I don't know how or why exactly these places are chosen. I'm guessing it has to do something with places that influenced you the most at a given point in your life, which is not something you can choose.'

Sakura shuffled with her foot in the sand and tightened her lips.

'Still, you have lived in this place for years now. This is one of my worst memories, and you have spent years here.'

Inner put her hand on Sakura's arm. 'Well then, we better find a new place that really feels like home – and maybe, this rotten place will finally go away!'

Sakura had to laugh when Inner punctuated this sentence with a punch in the air, a stance reminiscence of what she always felt like when they were little.

'This has so much potential, though!' said Sakura while she stepped back from Inner and started to walk around the clearing, throwing her arms wide. 'You have your own mind and consciousness. Could this mean if we start to _really_ work together that we can read two books at once? Watch both our sides? Concentrate on healing a bone while you keep an eye on the blood flow?

For that matter, how does your chakra work? Charka is a matter of both body and mind. Do you have your own chakra? How is your chakra control? Can you even use chakra?'

'Easy, easy!' Inner cut her counterpart off with a chuckle. 'You've always been the more scientifically inclined one of the two of us.'

Sakura gave an embarrassed huff, but gestured for Inner to continue talking.

'While I can gauge your energy, I don't think I have direct access to your chakra stores. I'm not sure how all of it works, but I am sure that I've never been as interested as you in medical ninjutsu. I much prefer punching things, to be honest. I always immersed myself fully in your senses when you were doing physical training, and I've maybe fallen asleep once or twice when you were studying all those bacteria and diseases. Oops?'

Sakura just shook her head, amused.

'The thing I'm most interested in, though…'

Inner hesitated and scratched her head. Sakura raised her eyebrow.

'Yes?'

'…canweswitchplaces?'

'What?'

'Can we switch places?' Inner burst out. 'I mean, I don't want to be rude, or take over or something, I mean I like watching you live your, sort or our, life, but it would be really cool if I could sometime try to take control myself because that seems so nice but I don't want to make you feel like…' Inner trailed off.

'No, no, it's okay, I understand! I'd like to try that as well, you know.' Sakura said while smiling. She then rubbed her head with her hand.

'That's good. Yeah, that's good. Cha!' Inner struck a pose for a short moment before scratch her head in embarrassment. 'Sorry. Habits. Normally no one can see me.'

Sakura just giggled. Then she perked up. 'Oh, that reminds me, how does genjutsu work for you? Since we have different minds, how do you experience a genjutsu cast on me?'

'Well, I'm using your senses, so I am caught in it to some point. I hear and see what you do, so if the genjutsu shows you something I see it as well. But it doesn't get my mind. So when you're caught in some silly genjutsu that makes you think, for example, the moon is red, we both see a red moon. But you, caught in the genjutsu, think the red moon is normal, while I know that it is normally white so it's a genjutsu.

I've only figured this out since Kurenai started us on the big ones, though. We haven't encountered them a lot, and with Kurenai's small genjutsu I only sometimes noticed the difference if I was really paying attention. But with the big ones, it's obvious.'

'That's cool.' Sakura said, rubbing her head again.

'You okay?' asked Inner with concern.

'I'm not used to the feeling of being in two places at once, to be honest. It gives me a bit of a headache.' Sakura sad softly.

'Let's get you back into your body, then!'

'But! What about switching places?' Sakura said with a pained voice. 'And I can finally see you in this way, I don't want to leave yet!'

'It's okay. Now that we managed this, we can do it again, and I don't want to rush things. And we can still keep talking, remember?' Inner said with conviction. 'Now, concentrate on your body!'

Sakura swept Inner up in another hug and closed her eyes with a smile.

The way back to her body was a lot easier than getting to Inner. She concentrated on her senses fully, the feel of the bed sheets against her leg, the soft breeze from the window against her neck, a loose hair against her cheek.

When she opened her eyes again, she was sitting on her bed.

Sakura took a breath.

' _Inner?_ '

' **I'm here. And tired.** '

Sakura looked out of the window. When she settled down in the inn room, the sun was going down. Now, when she looked outside, the sun was still setting in almost the same position.

' _How much time has passed? When I look outside it seems that only a few minutes at most have passed, but surely we spend longer talking to each other.'_

' **I'm not sure. I do know, that when we communicate like this, it goes far quicker than talking. We're technically thinking at each other, after all, and we're both smart cookies so our thinking speed is pretty fast.'**

That sounded fair. Still, it was important to know if their talk had taken a few minutes, a few seconds, or no time at all. If they wanted to talk in the midst of battle, if Inner could break her out of a genjutsu, a few seconds difference could mean it was a viable tactic or not.

She still had a headache.

' _I'm going to lay down. Let's sleep on it and talk further tomorrow, when my headache's hopefully gone as well.'_

' **You can heal it, you know.'**

Sakura let herself fall down on her bed.

' _I have a headache, I'm excused from being smart for the day!'_

After putting a glowing green hand to her head, the pink haired woman readied herself for bed. Although her head was full of possibilities and worries, sleep took her quickly.

In the morning, Sakura stretched herself like a cat and rose slowly. After a quick breakfast downstairs, she went up to her room again and gathered a pen and a pencil.

Exploring the possibilities with Inner or figure out how to be a missing-nin?

' **Missing-nin first. That's more pressing.** '

Agreeing with her other half, Sakura started thinking about the problems she would have to solve.

Her appearance. Her shinobi-like movement. The uniqueness of her techniques. Covering her tracks, which she knew only the basics of. Surviving: money, food, housing. Settling down (or not). Potential loneliness. Dangers of traveling alone.

Ugh. This was depressing. She needed a break.

Deciding to get some fresh air, Sakura went downstairs and after paying the innkeeper for another night, started exploring the town. Kiru was busier than she expected on this morning, but the reason became clear as she approached the town square. There was a small market set up, clearly only for a day. The townspeople were haggling and chatting and generally getting their weeks' groceries. Some of them were to busy to notice her, but those who did made sure to give her a wide berth.

She had never experienced this in Konoha. Then again, in Konoha she was a familiar face with a Konoha headband in a city where the civilians were used to being around ninja. This was a whole different story in a small village on the outskirts like Kiru.

While she was walking through the village with a slow pace, she started overthinking her problems. She would surely dye her hair, but she also had too much muscle for a civilian girl. A permanent henge on top of her dyed hair would be a good idea. With her chakra control and capacity she should be able to handle it. Still, there was always the danger of the henge failing or an enemy ninja noticing the chakra use.

Still, it could work. As for the way she walked, well, she just had to pay attention in the next weeks about how to walk and talk as a civilian. She'd never really done undercover work, but she was confident that she would manage it adequately.

 _Adequately is not enough_ , a voice whispered in the back of her head. Ignoring it, Sakura kept walking.

What about her tracks? The best way to cover then would be to travel as another person permanently and consistently, since she wasn't enough of an expert to constantly erase her tracks, especially if ANBU were to track her. This meant she had to think of a new identity to assume. A new life story, hobbies, everything. She had to become a new person.

But what if her story failed? What if she became too suspicious? If she travelled consistently as another person, it made her anonymous, but if an enemy ninja (or former comrade) tracked this new her she would be discovered easily.

Shit.

Both the henge and the cover story were not foolproof. They were good ideas, but not original neither would they fool the best trackers. Thinking of Kiba, she realized she had no way to change her scent.

Well, maybe she could make some kind of potion which would change her scent, but she would have to take that constantly and she had no equipment to research and make something like that right now.

Fuck.

She shook herself from her thoughts. Without noticing it, her feet had taken her to the local healer. Entering the small house with the sign outside, she could see this was not a real healer. It was more of a herbalist shop, and the old woman behind the countertop looked knowledgeable, but not like an educated medic.

'Good morning.' she said. The woman nodded back, but her eyes were narrowed. Her long grey hair was braided on one side, and she had piercing blue eyes which showed surprising strength. The shop inventory was small, but she did have a few useful herbs which could be used in pain dimming of infection halting salves. There was one bed, currently unused, to the left of the shop slash house. In a small town like this, there were unlikely to be several sick people at a time. And if that would happen, they would need outside help anyway.

As Sakura collected the herbs she wanted to purchase, the door opened again. A mother walked in, a sniffing child on her arm. The boy seemed to be around eight years old and was holding his tears in admirably. His short brown hair was ruffled and there were dirt streaks on his face. The mother seemed young, somewhere in her twenties, but had a kind face. She walked straight toward the old woman, clearly distressed. 'My boy has fallen out of a tree when playing outside, and his arm does not look good. Please help!' the mother said loudly, ending her plea with a bow as the boy's eyes started getting wet again.

The old woman gestured sharply towards the bed. The mother put the child down, shushing him softly, and the old woman knelt by the small boy. 'Let me see that arm, young lad!' Sakura was looking at the boy as well, curious.

The boy's arm was clearly broken. Not uncommon after a fall like that, and easily healed. However, the old woman had not noticed this yet, as she poked the arm with more force than was necessary. The boy winced as tears finally started to fall down.

As the old woman stepped back to presumably get some herbs, Sakura decided it was time to step in. 'Excuse me, madam. I heard what happened, and I think I can help. I am a trained medical ninja-' seeing the mother take a small step back Sakura added '- from Konoha and I could take a look at your son.'

The mother was tense, her long brown hair covering one eye, but did not seem hostile. 'I don't have any money.' she said. Her voice was soft and kind, but her tone was tense and wary.

'That's okay. I am offering to help you, so this is for free.' Sakura answered. It surprised her that money would be the woman's first concern.

The woman still looked sceptical, but nodded. 'Please don't hurt him.' she said softly. 'Of course not! I'm a healer, I'm here to help!' Sakura reassured her, weirded out by her wary stance as she knelt by they boy.

'It's okay.' she reassured the boy who looked up to her with fearful eyes. 'Let me take a look.' she said as she gently took his arm and started focusing on her medical chakra. 'It can be dangerous, climbing in trees so high, even though it seems cool. So watch out, okay?'

Her chakra slowly moved up the skin, through the blood vessels, looking for disturbances and repairing them. When it reached the broken bone, it took both ends of the cleanly broken bone and knit them back together, using the energy to stimulate cell growth.

The boy had nodded in response, and Sakura smiled. 'It is a clean break, so it is quite easy to heal. You're lucky!' she said with a smile as she let the arm go. Clean fractures are easy to heal, and for a healer like her only took half a minute at most. Clean bone fractures were one of the first serious injuries a medic learns to heal.

'How long will it take to heal?' the mother asked Sakura stiffly. Sakura turned and smiled at her. 'I just finished healing it. His arm is as good as new!'

The mother's mouth dropped open and the boy started waving his arm around in astonishment, tear streaks dried up on his cheeks. 'Mama, look!' he cried as he showed her his newly healed arm.

'Thank you, thank you!' the mother exclaimed and bowed deeply, twice. 'You saved us, thank you. Now he will be fit again to help with the harvest, you saved us, thank you!'

'It's okay! It was no trouble!' Sakura exclaimed, surprised by her reaction.

The mother took her son and left the shop quickly, and shot her a last look of thankfulness mixed with nervousness. Sakura shook her head, a bit surprised by their reactions.

'Not used to that, aren't ye?'

The old woman was standing behind her. The pendants around her wrinkled neck moved as she spoke to Sakura.

'No,' Sakura replied honestly. 'In Konoha my skills are much more common.'

'Ye don't understand how special yer skills are, young lady. In Konoha, it may be more common, but here, ye just performed a miracle. That family would have missed the labour of them oldest son for the harvest season. They would have probably still tried to make him work, which would've made it worse! The chance of infection is high for them poor families, especially in the fields. He could've died from that injury, and his family would'ave been left hungry and devastated for the winter. And you prevented all this in just a few seconds. For free.'

Sakura was quiet for a moment.

'Take those herbs ye wanted to buy from me as payment. A selfless act like that I would like to reward. There are few of ye kind who would have done what ye did.'

'Are Konoha shinobi really that bad?'

'They are better than foreign shinobi.' the woman answered. She did not look nervous. She just looked resigned.

Sakura said her goodbyes and walked out of the shop, thinking.

The whole event didn't sit right for her. The expectations of the mother, the words of the old woman. The fact that she could help an innocent boy like that, however, brightened her spirits.

The contradicting feelings left her restless. She decided to go to the edge of the village and walked into the woods surrounding the town, the sounds of the weekly market getting weaker and weaker.

Finding a small clearing, she started stretching her muscles. When she had warmed up a bit, she started running laps in the woods, just to keep herself active and really warm up.

She felt restless, itching for a fight, but there was no one to spar with her here.

There would be no one to spar with her for a very long time.

Sakura's shoulders sagged as she realized this. Yes, it was true that she chose to leave Lee behind, but she would miss him. She would miss his enthusiasm and energy and the challenge he gave her when sparring.

' **Ah well, if we end up getting hunted we'll have plenty of time to practice our skills!'**

' _Ha, ha.'_

Once again, Inner had a point. Sakura had worked hard her whole life – well, from around the Forest of Death at least – to become who she was now, including her physical strength and genjutsu. She didn't want to throw this away, not only because she might need it to save her life, but also because it was part of her. Part of her identity.

She liked her strength, her power, her abilities. She doesn't want to let it go.

Which brings another dilemma to her quest to become an unnoticed anonymous village healer with no special other abilities to speak of.

' **We really haven't thought this through…'**

' _It really seems like our dream keeps moving further and further away. What options do we have left?'_

She couldn't stop training and getting stronger, or at least improve her strength. What if she needs to defend herself? And her cover story will not be infallible, nor will her tracking skills be absolute.

Sakura was one of the best healers; a beast in a taijutsu fight; and had mastered genjutsu in her own way.

She was not someone who was very subtle. She could not track enemies from miles and miles away, nor did she know or could she counter the techniques which did that. She was not an infiltrator, nor a spy.

The fist suited her far more than the cloak.

What did this mean for her possibilities as a missing-nin? Especially considering her motivation to get out of Konoha in the first place – escape the world of blood and death, and find a new world of peace, warmth and healing?

Sakura let out a short cry of frustration as her fist lashed out and, without even consciously realizing it, charged it with chakra.

The boulder she hit did nothing for a split second. Then, it burst into a million different pieces and shattered all around her.

As she stood in the rain of gravel, Sakura could only imagine the face of an innocent civilian catching her by surprise plastered on the rock.

* * *

Hi, I'm alive, just doing a masters degree ;D But thank you all so much for your lovely comments and reviews 3  
And don't worry, next chapter will be the last transition chapter, and we will meet some of our favourite murderers then!


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